


Charged

by cydonic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Butt Plugs, First Kiss, First Time, Kid Fic, M/M, Mistaken Identity, No Angst, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War Bucky Barnes, Public Sex, Rimming, Sugar Daddy Steve Rogers, but with that sweet TWS hairdo, excessive flirting, mention of sex worker Bucky Barnes, rich people bullshit, sugar baby bucky barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26711530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cydonic/pseuds/cydonic
Summary: Steve Rogers has more money than he knows what to do with, a gorgeous penthouse apartment, and two beautiful girls who have terrorised every previous nanny into resignation. Bucky Barnes is an accomplished sex worker with a mountain of ill-advised debt, who just so happens to have helped raise his four sisters alongside his mother.It's a common mistake to make, thinking the beautiful man at your door is the new nanny for your twin girls and not an escort hired by your friend to keep you company for the night.Right?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 753
Kudos: 1281
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019, stucky





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Giveusakiss4132](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giveusakiss4132/gifts).



> After months and months of planning and writing, here it is - my Marvel Trumps Hate fic!
> 
> The wonderful Tasha made a huge donation to Planned Parenthood in exchange for this fic, and I'm glad I get to finally share it with you all. I hope this is everything you wanted.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to the lovely [Jen](https://twitter.com/jenofthemoon) for being you - such a beautiful and kind and supportive human. And special thanks for coming up with the most perfect title for this fic! Thank you also to [Maggie](https://twitter.com/maggneto_) for listening to me complain and helping support me through writing this. You are both so amazing. 💖
> 
> I'm somewhat active on Twitter ([@_cydonic](https://twitter.com/_cydonic)) and would love to hear what you think of this fic! This work is complete, and I'll be posting chapters weekly. 😊
> 
> Tags will be updated as we go along to reflect the explicit content to come 👀

The Rogers household is always an experience, particularly early in the morning. Its four occupants - three related, two of the tender age of four, one a beaming father, and one beyond frustrated - are never peaceful for long. This Friday morning, like every other before it for the past 4.9 years, and likely every one to come, begins the same as always.

Lydia and Charlotte, as a rule, do not ascribe to ridiculous notions like ‘waking with the sun’ or even ‘waking at a decent human time’. They always beat Steve’s alarm at screaming him into wakefulness, and though he hates the abrupt wake up call, he has to admit he loves spending time with the girls. Even when their current nanny, Josie, is leaning against the door frame and scowling at the three of them in their obnoxiously loud cuddle pile, Steve’s mood will not be dampened.

Slowly, sleepily, he kisses both girls and worms himself free of their iron grasps. “Daddy has to get ready for work, girls,” Steve says, and ignores their complaints (or tries to, at least, but his heart breaks a little every day - it’s a sound he’ll never get used to). They roll around in his bed, fussing about his departure and absorbing the residual warmth, and Steve smiles encouragingly at Josie as he sneaks out the door with his suit in one hand.

Within half an hour Steve is showered and caffeinated and well on his way to being fed. He kisses Lydia and Charlotte goodbye and waves to Josie, who doesn’t even acknowledge the gesture. Steve can’t bring himself to care about that - no nanny is _ever_ impressed to be lumped with his children for days on end. The only thing that keeps them around is the ludicrously high pay, Steve knows this. It’s just that he doesn’t have another choice - around his gruelling hours and status as a single parent, there’s not much else he can do.

Besides, she could at least _try_ to look enthused. She has full health benefits, an obscene stipend, and full access to his apartment 24-hours a day. The only downside, apparently, is having to take care of Lydia and Charlotte. They’re the apples of Steve’s eyes - they can do no wrong, even when they’re laying glue all over the ten thousand dollar couch Tony got him as a housewarming gift and liberally applying sequins to it. Nannies, however, can and do find wrong with them. _They’re too loud, they’re too full of energy, they keep tearing apart my clothes for craft activities…_

Whatever.

That’s a problem for another time. Josie’s got them until tonight and then she has a blessed night off as Aunty Peggy (we don’t say mother, despite her uterus being their origin) flies into town for one of her whirlwind visits. She takes the girls to some dumb fancy (even by Steve’s standards) hotel, books out the best room, gets room service and books manicures and pedicures and gives them obscenely expensive gifts and then flies out again. It’s a day every month that she aims for but, depending on work (we don’t ask about that, either), it can blow out to as far as three months between visits or be as frequent as every fortnight.

So there it is - a night off, a night of freedom. Steve has approximately zero plans outside of sitting rugged up on the couch (sequins and all) and watching some stupid action movie on Netflix. As much as Lydia and Charlotte are Steve’s world, it is nice to have a break every now and then.

Steve stops into the little bakery at the bottom of their building and picks up his usual, a bagel so everything’d that parts of it inevitably fall into the bottom of the bag and form some sort of secondary pastry. It’s only a two block walk to Stark Tower, and Steve attempts to eat his bagel on the way without it becoming a disaster. He fails, as he does every other day, but the fact that he’s trying should count for something.

The sun’s finally up but it's no less freezing when Steve scans his employee identification card at the elevator and steps inside, heading to one of the floors that Tony has somewhat unnecessarily made exclusive to specific people only. Steve can’t fathom why, because Tony only takes important and potentially private business meetings in his home lab, but Steve’s gotten to the point where questioning Tony Stark on his motives isn’t even worth it.

“Speak of the devil,” Steve says, as he picks up a chunk of cream cheese from the bottom of the bag, now coated in the delicious crumbs that were lost along the way. He pops it into his mouth, holding the bag beneath his jaw to try and save the floor from damage.

“You were thinking of me?” Tony asks and moves to sprawl across Steve’s chair in a way that he maybe thinks is sexy. Steve remains unimpressed as he ducks around Tony and puts his bag on the ground. “Mind out of the gutter when you’re at work, please, Rogers.”

“I’m not the one who needs _that_ memo,” Steve fires back, leaning against his desk and waiting for Tony to say whatever it is he’s come to say. When he remains silently sitting there, looking awfully judgemental, Steve prods. “Can I help you, Mister Stark?”

“Maybe,” Tony draws out the vowels, and then spins around once in the chair, looking… terribly suspicious. Steve doesn’t trust Tony on the best of days, and he certainly doesn’t trust him today. “What are you up to tonight?”

“Peg has the girls and Josie said she was going to visit her parents. I was just planning on watching TV all night,” Steve elaborates, and then pauses. Tony might be asking him to do something and Steve’s eyes narrow. It’s always wise to be skeptical when it comes to Tony Stark and favours. “Why?”

“No reason,” Tony chirps, spins around again. “So you’re home alone, huh? When’s the last time you got laid? Must be a few months now, right?”

There it is. Steve sighs and pushes at Tony’s shoulder with his hand. “That’s none of your business.”

Tony, in some moment of benevolence, stands up and gestures extravagantly for Steve to take the seat. “Sure it is!”

“ _How_ is it your business, then?” Steve asks, sitting down and sliding his chair in so he can log onto his computer. Tony might be impossible to ignore, but Steve can at least check his emails while discussing his own sexual exploits (or lack thereof) for the third time that week. Steve still can’t figure out why his sex life/not-life is a point of interest for Tony. He spends most of his days designing technological devices that many deem impossible, and yet here he is, bothering Steve over something so minor.

“Because you get grumpy when you haven’t had sex in a while,” Tony says, heaving a put-upon sigh, as if the burden of Steve’s apparent mood falls directly on him. Nevermind that Tony is only around when _he_ wants something, and at other times is nigh uncontactable. “So spill. Did you sleep with the nanny yet?”

Steve nearly sputters out the bagel he’s still endeavouring to eat. “What is _wrong_ with you?” Steve has to raise his voice to be heard over Tony’s amused cackling. “Of course I didn’t. She looks after my _kids_.”

Tony hums thoughtfully. “Right. And speaking of the twin spawns of Satan, how are they this morning?”

“ _Tony_.”

“What?” He raises his hands to deflect all criticism. “We have an agreement. They don’t use their devil powers on me, I buy them whatever toys they want.”

Steve huffs and opens his inbox instead, attempting to ignore Tony despite knowing full well it won’t work.

Tony doesn’t even make it a minute before continuing to pry unnecessarily into Steve’s life. “You know, I’ve been thinking about it and, in the interest of _not_ disrupting the very tentative balance of good and evil in the universe, I think that maybe sex with any potentially-child-bearing adult is off the table. Just in case.”

Steve knows that this is Tony very much being Tony. He is used to this. At least a quarter of his pay has to come with willingly putting up with these sorts of discussions - he’s like the HR Department’s saving grace. “Thank you,” Steve begins dryly, clicking the trash icon on most of the emails as he reads the subject line. Whole staff emails are literally the worst, “for your input.”

Tony is bad at waiting for people to elaborate, but he makes a valiant effort before caving and continuing. “So, I know some really nice guys-”

“- _no_ -”

“-who could be made available, say, tonight-”

“- _Tony_ -”

“-if you were interested.”

“I’m _not_ interested,” Steve grinds out, around trying to comprehend the email one of the teams he supervises has sent through. It’s hard to focus when your boss is busy trying to set you up. And Steve does _not_ want to know what Tony’s idea of a ‘really nice guy’ is.

Tony makes a noise comparable to that of a four-year-old girl denied the toy that they _need_ to survive (Steve would know) and pushes himself away from Steve’s desk. “Let me know if you change your mind,” he calls, loud enough that anyone else on the floor would be able to hear it.

Steve chooses _not_ to reply and instead do his job, which is something Tony Stark is shockingly unfamiliar with.

—

By five thirty that night, Steve has nearly wrapped up his work for the day. He’s met with all the teams to review their work from the week and go through some goals they can set in their unsupervised Monday morning meetings. He’s delegated other tasks, and taken on more for himself. It’s all rather _business as usual_ , so when Steve’s phone rings he suspects that it’s Peggy letting him know she’s already collected the girls.

Steve answers without checking the caller ID, which is why Nat’s voice takes him by surprise. “What are you doing tonight?” She asks, completely cutting off Steve’s polite greeting.

“Uh,” he answers, brain momentarily offline as he catches up with the unexpected voice on the line. “I was just going to watch TV while Peggy takes the girls?” Steve answers, though it comes out more like a question, as if he’s uncertain about his own life. Nat would probably know better than him what he’s doing on most given evenings anyway.

“So you’re free?” Nat presses.

“I - guess so. Has something happened?”

“Stark wanted a meeting with the Maximoffs, correct?”

Steve hums as he deletes another whole-staff email about labelling food in the staffroom. “They met with Killian last night and flew out today. They weren’t interested in Tony’s invitation.”

“Their flight to Zurich got delayed until tomorrow,” Nat states in the conspiratorial way she has about her that suggests, perhaps, she had something to do with it. Not that there would be a shred of evidence to prove it. “I’ve booked them dinner at Le Bernardin, I said you’d be there.”

Steve sighs. It’s a little sigh, but he knows Nat will have picked up on it by sheer virtue of who she is. “Why can’t you do it?” It’s not that Nat doesn’t work with them - she absolutely does. It’s that Steve doesn’t know exactly what role she holds. He’s not sure if Tony does, either. All Steve knows is that Stark Industries pays her salary.

“I’m busy. Either you go, or Stark does.”

Which is, Nat knows, the easiest way to get Steve to agree to something. It’s either he goes, or Tony sabotages the meeting by merit of who he is. The people who want to meet with Stark get the meeting, because they know what they’re getting into. People who initially decline that are given the next best thing - which, apparently, is Steve.

Besides, it’s not like he’s missing out on time with the girls. He has the night off anyway. “What time is it?”

“I’ll text you everything you need to know,” Nat says, before hanging up without even saying goodbye.

Well.

He’ll have to catch up on shitty action movies another time.

—

When Steve arrives home, having clocked out at 6:38pm (which is much earlier than normal), things have gone from inconvenient, skipped bad, and hit worst.

Josie is standing in the doorway to Steve’s apartment, which is not her typical afternoon routine. She has an overnight bag slung over one shoulder, and the small, carry-on sized suitcase she moved into the apartment with by her side. There is a significant amount of screeching coming from within Steve’s apartment. He’s glad that they’re the only ones on this floor, or else he’d have some very displeased neighbours.

“I’m done,” she states, without preamble.

“Done?” Steve asks, as if to clarify, even though he knows exactly what she means. He’s done this song and dance before. All the nannies think it’s a great gig initially - minus the actual looking after kids part. Eventually, the novelty of good money wears off and Steve’s left scrambling to find someone willing to fill the gap, often at a higher pay rate than their predecessor.

Josie merely huffs and storms off, and Steve… can’t quite blame her. He works long days, and the time he spends with his girls is so precious - for both of them - that he can overlook their tendency to be loud… and destructive… and stubborn. Someone stuck with them all day, every day, well… Steve can understand the frustration. That’s why he pays so well. It’s to compensate for the job, though apparently it was not compensation enough.

“I’ve let the company know,” Josie offers as a parting word whilst awaiting the arrival of the elevator.

Probably giving him notice would’ve been better, but Steve will take what he can get. “Do you know if they’re sending someone else out to replace you?”

Josie snorts disdainfully, and Steve’s not entirely sure why. “Maybe,” she says, as she steps into the elevator, and, as the doors slide closed, Steve gets the feeling that’s the last time he’s ever going to see her.

Well, she wouldn’t be the first to walk out. Hopefully she’s the last, though Steve won’t be holding his breath on that one.

“Daddy!” Lydia shrieks from the doorway, running full-pelt down the hall to tackle him around the legs. Charlotte, the quieter of the two - though not by much - hovers by the door frame and watches him with a big, toothy grin, some kind of snack smeared across her face.

“Hi, baby,” Steve says, shifting his briefcase to rest over his wrist and swinging Lydia up into his arms. “How was your day, sweetie?”

“Nanny Josie got mad at us,” Lydia explains, before launching into a detailed recount of how all they had done was decide to make pancakes for themselves. By the sounds of it, they used the floor to mix and put every possible ingredient and utensil into the pile, eventually creating an obscene mess that warranted two full dishwasher loads and a grocery order to replenish the ruined food.

Charlotte wraps herself around Steve’s knees as he approaches the door, forcing him to stumble the rest of the way inside. Somehow, she manages to hang onto him even as Steve kicks the door shut behind him and toes off his shoes. “So you made a big mess in the kitchen, huh?” Steve asks, dumping his briefcase and hoisting Charlotte up in his other arm with a grunt. God, they are getting big. He isn't going to be able to carry them around for much longer.

“No,” Lydia insists, even as Charlotte answers, “yes,” with a sad kind of look about her.

“Well, that probably didn’t make Nanny Josie feel good, huh?” Steve asks, and both girls - probably in the interest of shutting him up, not out of any real remorse - sulkily agree with him.

He walks through the entrance into the living room, dumping both girls down onto the couch and listening to their delighted squeals. Lydia’s back on her feet in moments, holding her arms up and demanding he do it again.

“In a moment,” Steve says, but pushes Lydia back anyway so she lands on her bottom next to a giggling Charlotte. “I’m going to ring Aunty Peggy and see where she is.”

Normally Peggy would have called Steve earlier in the day - she’d come by and get the girls around mid-afternoon, in and out before he got home. It was never in the interest of avoiding him, though. It was to maximise the time Peggy got with the girls - her girls, too - before she had to fly off again.

But, again, Steve doesn’t know much of what she’s up to these days, just that it’s classified to him. She’s probably on her way over now, if that hotel reservation and manicurist booking is going to be put to good use.

Steve walks through to his bedroom to escape the chant of, “Aunty Peggy!” that’s begun in the living room, but it follows him with stamping feet. He has the phone up to his ear, and is trying to hear the ringing over the sounds of two hyped-up children. Lydia takes a running leap onto Steve’s bed and starts bouncing on it, Charlotte clambering up behind her with only a touch more sensibility.

“ _Girls_!” Steve snaps as much as he ever does, which is to say not much at all. The girls ignore him, faltering only briefly in their chanting. The phone call goes through to voicemail.

Steve hangs up, and tries again. Same result.

Which leaves Steve in this position: an hour out from a very important dinner that could seal him a deal they’ve been chasing for years, with two children, covered in what must be dried up pancake batter and some form of craft supply. Possibly crepe paper. Steve can’t quite make it out.

His choices, at this stage, are to take the girls to dinner or to get Tony to go in his stead, and Steve doesn’t know which would be more detrimental to this deal. Probably Tony.

Alright. Maybe Peggy will land in a moment and get there in time. Maybe Josie’s replacement will show up. The dinner could still go ahead.

“I need to have a shower,” Steve explains to the girls, who don’t even bother acknowledging him. Steve heaves a sigh and brings out the big guns. “If you’re quiet, you can use your StarkPads to play some games.”

Steve doesn’t have anything against technology and kids, but he hired a nanny to ensure his girls _aren’t_ getting raised by screens. It just so happens that technology comes in handy for times when you need children to be immobile due to their insatiable appetite for weird YouTube videos.

Charlotte and Lydia appear at his feet moments later, dead quiet, picture perfect. Lydia bats her eyelashes. Charlotte leans in to hug him around the legs. “I love you, Daddy,” she says, so sweetly that Steve knows it’s fake. He just doesn’t have the time to care.

He disentangles himself and goes over to his wardrobe, opening the floor safe and procuring the two StarkPads, both in colourful pink cases. They had previously lived on the top shelf of his wardrobe, but they had to be moved when the girls somehow managed to precariously stack a dining chair and a toybox to get to them. The interior of the safe probably won’t stay free from their grasp for long, either.

Steve doesn’t even get a chance to hold them out before the two StarkPads are snapped up and the girls are gone. Steve hears their door shut moments later. There’s no point dwelling over what they’re getting up to - Tony himself had designed the family-proofing on them. Steve knows that if anyone could get through such a digital blockade, it’d be his two girls, but he likes to think they’d wait a few more years before graduating to hacking.

Parenthood has given Steve many gifts, one of which is the art of a quick shower. He’s in and out in a minute - towelled off and redressed in three. There’s still nothing but silence from the girls’ room, but there _is_ something else. Someone is knocking at the door.

Steve frowns and checks his watch. It’s half-past seven now, which means he only has about ten minutes to leave home in order to make dinner on time. The watch face indicates no missed calls or text messages, and though he hopes the knock is Peggy, he’s not so sure. She has her own key and lets herself in if he doesn’t answer straight away.

Whoever it is, they wouldn’t be up here for the wrong reasons. One has to be on the list to get up to Steve’s floor, and - though Tony frequently evades the doorman - the security is pretty airtight.

So Steve, with no idea who he’s going to find, ducks out to open the door.

He is, momentarily, struck by the sight. It isn’t Peggy. It isn’t anyone Steve has ever seen before in his life. The man standing there has brown hair, hanging loose in gentle waves around his face. He wears clothing that is black but well-fitting, clearly made of expensive material. In his hand he holds a briefcase, and when his eyes meet Steve’s he smiles.

Steve blinks. He is the most attractive person Steve has seen in his life, and - as a bisexual living in the year 2020 - he is spoiled for choice. It only strikes Steve then that he’s been staring, and his cheeks redden with an embarrassed flush that he hopes isn’t too obvious.

“Mr Rogers, I presume?” The man asks, politely holding out a hand.

 _Oh_. Steve takes the hand and tugs on it, coaxing the man inside. Someone so polite, let through by his security, could only mean one thing. “You’re the nanny?” Steve asks, no longer attempting to hide the desperation in his voice.

The man looks dumbfounded a moment, before he nods his head with a knowing smile that Steve doesn’t spend an unnecessary amount of time staring at. “Yes. Absolutely. The nanny.”

It _was_ kind of the universe to answer Steve’s prayers in the nick of time, and even kinder still for it to bless him with a man who is - quite frankly - downright _gorgeous_. Maybe things _were_ turning around for him.

“I’ll give you a quick tour.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the lovely comments on the first chapter! I am trying my best to reply to all of them! 😊 But I want you to know that they really make my day!

Bucky has been involved in some really fucking weird fantasies in his life. He’s been asked to perform every entry-level job under the sun, often for rich men to indulge in while ignoring their wives. He’s shown up to houses with empty pizza boxes, smiling as he offers the meatlover special to the “customer”. He’s been a butler multiple times, and - on one memorable occasion - a maid, complete with an inaccurate, though enjoyable, costume. Bucky has done it all, has played out these stupid menial roles to please the person paying his bills, so when Steve says, “you’re the nanny?” it doesn’t take Bucky too long to get with the program.

“Yes. Absolutely. The nanny,” Bucky says, putting emphasis behind each word - if he had his hands free (and wasn’t, y’know, working) he would have made air-quotes to show Steve that he was in on the little game he wanted to play.

Steve’s next statement - “I’ll give you a quick tour” - strikes Bucky as somewhat unusual, but he nods his head and follows him inside.

The apartment that sprawls out before Bucky is exactly what he expected it to be: expensive. When Steve’s friend had called to arrange this rendezvous, offering Bucky his overnight rate whether Steve wanted him that long or not, Bucky had known he was in for some rich people bullshit. The address was in the nicest area one could live, provided they made seven figures after tax. The furniture was simple but the vibe of it was obscenely expensive. For Bucky, who lived under mountains of ill-advised credit card debt and unpaid student loans from a degree he didn’t even finish, it was enough to be offensive.

But then he thinks of the money, all paid upfront, and puts on his prettiest smile. Steve takes him first to a small bedroom, though it’s small in the self-deprecating, rich people kind of way. Bucky’s whole apartment could fit inside said tiny room. “You can put your things here,” Steve gestures to the vacant space around the bed.

Bucky glances meaningfully at the bag in his hands. It’s expensive - okay, so he has expensive taste, sue him - and tasteful, but the contents are not the sort Bucky wants to leave laying around. Inside are a few entry level sex toys, because Steve’s friend Tony had been rather ambiguous about what, exactly, Steve wanted out of this session. Alongside those are enough baby wipes to sanitise a skyscraper, wholesale packets of both lube and condoms, and a few pairs of gloves, just in case.

You never know what people want.

“Okay,” Bucky says politely, leaving his bag inside the empty closet and returning to Steve’s side. He makes a point of standing close to the man, letting their upper arms brush, but then Steve walks off.

“I’m running a bit late, but I’ll introduce you to the girls first,” Steve explains as he raps his knuckles on one door.

Bucky tries to maintain his polite smile, but there’s a cute hanger on the door that says _Charlotte & Lydia_ in glittery cursive. Bucky’s fucked men while their wives sleep in the other room. He really doesn’t need to be part of some weird fantasy that involves someone’s kids being home, but he does need a few thousand dollars, so he nods his head.

“Girls, come meet your new nanny,” Steve calls, and Bucky is expecting this to be just a little act. The room is empty, because he’s a sleazebag whose wife has left him (a hot sleazebag, but a sleazebag nonetheless). That’s what it will be.

But no. Bucky pokes his head around Steve’s body, and there’s a little girl there. Two little girls, actually. One is sitting on the bed, playing on a tablet. The other lays across the floor on her stomach, also playing on a tablet. Neither of them even acknowledge the presence of their father, let alone him.

Bucky can’t school his expression into something less horrified by the time Steve turns to him, because he hears a tired sigh, then, “they didn’t tell you?”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. “ _They sure as fuck didn’t,”_ doesn’t really line up with the fact that he’s getting paid a lot to fuck this guy and right now he’s getting introduced to his fucking _kids_. “No, I didn’t get many details at all,” Bucky manages around a forced smile. It’s as close to the truth as he can get.

“Well, this is Charlotte,” Steve waves a hand to the girl on the bed, then the one on the ground, “and Lydia. I normally wouldn’t be in such a rush, but I have a meeting to get to. Their bedtime is usually eight, and they haven’t had dinner yet. But whatever you can manage is fine.”

The only thing Bucky can think of in that moment, mostly because his brain is shutting down, is that he really shouldn’t have left a bag full of vibrators and cock rings in an unlocked room with nosey kids around. “Sure,” Bucky agrees at last, in a strangled voice. Whether he fucks Steve or not clearly doesn’t matter at this moment. Really, he could be getting paid an exorbitant fee just to force food into two small children and then put them to sleep. He could come out of this on top. All of the sex money, none of the sex.

“There might be food in the fridge, I’m not sure. You’re welcome to order in, just tell Jarvis and he’ll put it onto my account. Get whatever you want - you’ve really saved my night.” Steve is chattering away as he gathers up his things and walks to the door, Bucky following behind him like a lost little puppy.

Once Steve is at the door, he turns back and hollers, “bye girls!”

Predictably, he receives no response.

“Thank you again. We can talk in the morning about how this is going to work.”

And then he’s gone, just like that.

Bucky, who shaved and got himself prepped for a more _adult_ rendezvous, has been left in charge of two small children.

He takes a moment to stare at the closed door in front of him. No sound comes from the two girls, which is to be expected. They have video games to play, after all, and are presumably buying a stack of premium content on daddy’s credit card. Bucky can’t blame them. He’d call Steve Daddy if it meant he could spend up big on his dime too.

However, he’s also been given a job to do. It’s almost eight now, so whatever bedtime Steve was hoping to enforce is going straight out the window. It doesn’t mean Bucky can’t do his best, and it also doesn’t mean he’s going to give up. He was the oldest in a family of girls and growing up with a single mother meant he spent almost as much time raising them as she had. Bucky’s no stranger to diapers or bottles or tantrums. Jess was the most difficult baby in the history of babies - Bucky’s cumulative sleep from her first year of life was somewhere around five hours at an optimistic estimate.

These girls will be nothing.

Bucky first goes to move his duffel up much, much higher into the closet, pushing it to the back corner of the top shelf. Then he goes to their room.

Neither girl has moved. Bucky isn’t sure they’re even breathing.

“Right,” Bucky says, and is ignored. “I’m going to make dinner. What do you want?”

Bucky gives them ten seconds to think of a response, but he knows they aren’t listening to him. So Bucky does what any good big brother does - he steals the object of their enjoyment.

Charlotte is taken by surprise and Bucky gets the tablet easily, but Lydia doesn’t give up without a fight. Her tiny body suddenly comes up with a huge amount of noise, a mix of unintelligible yelling and demands to explain who he is.

When Bucky, who is clearly only _slightly_ more muscular than a four-year-old, claims the tablet from her, Lydia turns her face to the ceiling and yells, “Jarvis, call the police!”

Up until this moment, Bucky was under the impression that they were alone in the house. If there was someone else - someone else who must be a fancy butler, because what the fuck kinda name is _Jarvis?_ \- why would Steve want Bucky there to babysit his little angels?

“My apologies, Miss Lydia, but there is no apparent danger in the apartment. Could you be more specific?” There is a voice, a fancy butler voice, but there’s no corporeal form to accompany it.

This development shocks approximately one third of the room, and that third is Bucky Barnes, who was already not ready for this without there being a talking ceiling involved too.

“This man took my game!” Lydia wails, standing on her bed so that she can put maximum distance between her and Bucky.

“Unfortunately, that is not an appropriate reason for the police to attend the premises,” the fancy butler responds.

“Okay,” Bucky interrupts Lydia’s continued complaints, loud enough to throw her into indignant silence. “ _Who_ is talking?”

“ _Jarvis_ ,” both girls answer at once, Lydia with exasperation, Charlotte with some amount of confusion, like who _doesn’t_ have a voice in their ceiling?

“Sure, Jarvis, whatever its name is. Who is it?”

“Jarvis is the voice in our roof,” Charlotte explains simply, speaking to Bucky like he’s a stupid child who needs every syllable drawn out nice and slow.

Bucky nods his head. “I can hear that,” Bucky says, equally as slow, “but what is he?”

Charlotte shrugs. “He’s like a robot, I guess.” Lydia’s gone back to whining.

Right. Okay. Rich, sexy Steve has a robot living in his ceiling. That’s totally cool. Bucky gets it.

“Great. Now that we know about roof robot, can we please decide on something for dinner?” It seems easier to return to the most pressing topic, which is dinner. They can talk about robots living in the ceiling later.

Bucky looks between both girls. Lydia is still making demands of Jarvis, tiny fists clenched. Charlotte looks up at him with big, thoughtful eyes. Bucky opts to watch Charlotte because looking at Lydia just makes him annoyed.

“Spaghetti,” Charlotte says with a sage nod, as if she has solved the greatest mystery to ever plague Bucky’s life and he should be very thankful.

“Right,” Bucky says, tucking both tablets under one arm. “You pop into the kitchen and I’ll be there in a second.”

With the fancy StarkPads in hand, Bucky returns to the room Steve gave him and sneaks them into the cupboard behind his bag of toys. He doesn’t doubt for a moment that someone as conniving as Lydia could find her way up onto that shelf, but at least Bucky knows he’s done his best.

He only gets lost once on his way into the kitchen, where Charlotte is patiently awaiting his arrival, sitting on her knees on one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

“Right, do you know where Dad keeps the spaghetti?” Bucky asks, already investigating the contents of the beautifully designed kitchen.

He glances inside one of the glass-fronted cupboards to find it full of what must be Steve’s special occasion china. Each plate and bowl is ringed with intricate detailing, the rim of each cup dipped in gold. Bucky considers pawning them, but only briefly.

The profit _would_ pay his rent for months.

Fucking Steve would _also_ pay his rent for a while, and Bucky’s not doing that, either.

“I don’t think we have any food,” Charlotte remarks from her tiny throne, but Bucky continues looking nonetheless.

Steve, aside from owning a ridiculous amount of fancy cutlery and strange looking kitchen utensils, does not own much food. He had said something about not knowing what food he had on his way out, so evidently cooking is not a pastime of Steve’s.

Bucky manages to find, hidden behind a spiralizer (who even _uses_ those?), a bag of macaroni. On a shelf above that, Bucky thinks he can spy a few canned foods and some spices, which makes sense - long life options are probably the best for someone who clearly orders in for the majority of his meals.

Standing on tiptoes - cursing Steve’s height and kitchen obviously catered to said height - Bucky manages to dig out of the pantry the pasta, some canned tomatoes and lentils, and a whole spice rack’s worth of seasonings. He doesn’t bother braving the fridge, because he doesn’t want to know what’s in there. Really. It could be bad.

Charlotte watches with wide eyes as Bucky gets a pot - makes a huge racket wrangling it out from beneath all the other cookware - and sets some salted water to boil. In the background, Bucky can still hear Lydia arguing. She’s possibly arguing with the ceiling, but perhaps she’s just yelling at the wall. There could be a robot in there, too. Bucky doesn’t really want to find out.

Instead, he focuses on making a rudimentary pasta sauce. It really would be offensive to Italians worldwide, considering he’s using the dusty, back-of-the-pantry tins Steve clearly never intended to use outside of the apocalypse. He mixes together crushed tomatoes, a rinsed tin of lentils, and goes to town with the various herbs and spices he managed to find.

“What are you doing?” Charlotte asks, climbing half onto the counter so she can watch Bucky work.

Bucky doesn’t exactly know himself, but he explains with certainty because he’s the only adult in the house right now. Who can snitch on him and tell her he’s doing a shitty job? “Making pasta sauce. It’s just tomatoes and herbs, basically.” Once again, Bucky can sense the universal cringe of all Italians. Whatever. He’s doing the best he can.

“Daddy normally just gets spaghetti from the delivery person,” Charlotte notes wisely, sitting back on her chair and letting Bucky continue. She looks almost pityingly at him.

“Today we’re making our own spaghetti,” Bucky replies, and tosses the pasta into the now-boiling pot of water.

Secretly, Bucky’s thankful Charlotte wanted something easy. Bucky ate before he came, so he’s fine, but he knows what children can be like. They’re fickle creatures with fleeting desires. _Kinda_ like Bucky.

After a few more minutes in which Bucky tests a lot of undercooked pasta, more for something to do than anything else, dinner comes together. He strains the pasta, tosses it in the DIY-sauce creation, and finds two of Steve’s least-fancy bowls to serve in.

There’s a hint of apprehension in Bucky as he serves the meal to Charlotte. It’s more likely than anything that her fancy taste buds will be displeased by his approach to cooking, which - even at home - is to toss a bunch of stuff together with seasoning and hope for the best.

Shockingly, Charlotte picks up her fork, and digs in with enthusiasm.

Which only leaves one, arguably more resistant, child to win over.

Bucky leaves Charlotte to inhale her dinner and returns to the scene of the crime - the girls’ room. The door is still open, and when Bucky peeks inside he finds Lydia face down on the bed, tiny hands balled into even tinier fists at her side.

“It’s dinner time,” Bucky states, taking the firm route with her. Giving in to the emotional whims of children never works. Bucky tries to tell himself that when he feels the need to go and buy new clothes to make himself feel better, but he’s not as good at saying no to himself as he is at saying it to children.

Lydia grumbles unintelligibly into the pillow and turns her head away from Bucky, avoiding him as much as physically possible.

“Come and eat dinner,” Bucky tries again, folding his arms and making sure his face is schooled into a serious expression, and not the amused smirk it wishes to wear.

“No,” Lydia yells into the pillow, so it comes out garbled but decipherable.

“You go hungry then,” Bucky says, and returns to the kitchen to see how Charlotte’s doing.

If there’s one thing he learned from raising four girls who all fell somewhere on the ‘diabolical child’ scale, it’s that coddling them never works. You take the hard line, and they either do what they’re supposed to, or they miss out.

Charlotte has nearly finished her dinner when Bucky returns, having inhaled the macaroni (and smeared plenty of sauce across her face in the process, of course). “How was it?” Bucky asks as he gathers up the dishes he made and tries to figure out how to open Steve’s dishwasher.

“It was yummy!” Charlotte chimes happily, pushing her bowl across the counter to where Bucky is hopefully tugging at whatever finger hold he can get on the metal.

“Pardon my interruption, sir,” The ceiling robot says, rather politely given he’s not a human and therefore shouldn’t know much about social niceties, “but you have to hold the button on the top-right to unlock the dishwasher.”

Bucky looks where he’s been told to and, lo and behold, there’s a tiny button there with _CHILD LOCK_ written above it. That makes sense. Defeated by a child lock - it’s not the first time that’s happened to Bucky. “Thank you,” Bucky says, feeling somewhat awkward about expressing gratitude to an inanimate being.

Jarvis says, “you’re most welcome, sir,” and falls silent again.

Bucky’s partway through manoeuvring the pot to fit in the ridiculously complicated dishwasher set-up when Lydia announces her presence with an overstated huff. Bucky doesn’t even acknowledge her. He places her full bowl - now likely well on the way to being cold - in the space beside Charlotte at the breakfast bar and returns to cleaning. Though he’s not directly looking at her, he can track Lydia’s progression through the room by her stomping footsteps and continued huffing and puffing.

When Bucky stands up and closes the dishwasher, he’s brought face-to-face with her scowling face. Jesus. Riding Steve’s dick all night would’ve been a walk in the park next to this. Bucky really hopes he pays his babysitters well - he clearly has the means to provide.

“I don’t want pasta,” Lydia complains, pushing the pasta around in her bowl with the fork, nose scrunched in disdain.

“Too bad,” Bucky says with a shrug. “You didn’t say what you wanted, so you get pasta.”

Lydia’s frown deepens, though Bucky’s not sure _how_. She already looked as grumpy as possible. “I wanted chicken,” Lydia continues, still scowling, still sounding sourer than Bucky’s ever heard a child sound before.

“Maybe tomorrow we can have chicken,” Bucky offers, an olive branch extended.

Lydia, in the face of his unsatisfying compromise, tosses the entire bowl onto the floor. The tomato sauce splatters everywhere, coating Steve’s wooden floor and climbing up his (probably custom designed) cupboard doors. Lydia looks at him with a challenge in her eyes, and _god_ , Bucky doesn’t envy Steve. Having to live with this all day would certainly be something.

It’s been a while since he’s had to deal with a child so annoying, and Bucky struggles momentarily to rein in his temper, before saying in a surprisingly level voice, “well, that’s your dinner.”

“I want _chicken_ ,” Lydia insists.

“Well, all you’ve got is floor pasta,” Bucky replies smartly, and takes some satisfaction in the shocked look on Lydia’s face. Bucky suspects she isn’t often told _no_. He then turns his attention to Charlotte, who’s been watching the scene play out with interest. “It’s bath time for you, kiddo,” Bucky says, and Charlotte obediently jumps off the stool and leads Bucky to the bathroom.

He’s sure he can hear Lydia demanding Jarvis do something, probably call the Secret Service at this point, but he ignores it. She’ll eat the macaroni, or she’ll go to bed hungry. In his experience, kids only go to bed hungry once before they learn their lesson. Lydia might be stubborn but trying to sleep on an empty stomach takes out even the strongest of people.

Bucky doesn’t waste too much time thinking about Lydia, because he’s walking into the bathroom, and it’s fucking amazing. There’s the usual basin and toilet to one side, but then there’s a small, glass-walled room set against the back of the bathroom. Inside it is a freestanding tub, the porcelain gleaming white, and several showerheads to pick from - a traditional, wall-set option, and then a waterfall one hanging from the roof. Each fitting is in gleaming chrome, without a single fingerprint - at least until Charlotte starts messing with the knobs trying to get the tub to fill.

“I’ll do that,” Bucky says quickly, trying to save the perfect fixtures from grubby, sauce-coated hands, “and you go get your pyjamas.” If Charlotte leaves, then Bucky can be confused by the variety of hardware that Steve’s tub comes with in peace.

It’s a good thing he’s both pretty _and_ smart, because he manages to get the water running at a child-appropriate temperature and find some bubble bath before Charlotte returns. The small room is starting to smell like apples and synthetic sweetness, a gentle curl of steam rising from the water’s surface before cooling into nothing.

Charlotte places her matching pyjama set on the floor beyond the little glass room Bucky’s in, then starts to strip off. Momentarily Bucky considers whether Steve would be okay with this - Steve thinks he’s the nanny, but he’s not. It doesn’t matter that his current day-slash-night job also deals with genitals, because they’re of the adult kind.

Whatever. Bucky’s bathed his little sisters from infancy up until it got too embarrassing and they could “do it themselves” (Bucky still mocks Lizzy for her phase when she didn’t know how to wash her hair and just wet it every night, leaving her with a greasy mess that was offensive to everyone within a five mile radius). It’s not like this is new to him.

He offers Charlotte a hand to climb over the high porcelain walls of the tub, and then she settles herself amongst the sea of bubbles. Charlotte picks a fuzzy pink loofah off the faucet and starts to scrub herself clean with the foam on top of the water. Bucky tries to squirt some body wash onto the plasticky pink tangle, but Charlotte tugs it out of his reach with a pout. Bucky lets her get away with it only because a battle with one child is enough for tonight. The bubbles will get her mostly clean, anyway.

When Charlotte proclaims herself done, Bucky takes the white washcloth from the rim of the tub and gently cleans the spaghetti sauce off from around her mouth. Bucky allows her a few minutes of splashing around and messing with the bubbles while he goes to find a towel.

Upon his return from the (obscenely expansive) linen closet, Bucky notices that Charlotte is no longer alone. Lydia sits in front of the glass door, her hands, face, and shirt covered in spaghetti sauce. Bucky can read the expression on her face, clear as day - sheepish, but unwilling to admit defeat. He’s not sure whether she’s eaten, tried to clean up, or made more of a mess, but he figures this is as close to a truce as they’re getting right now.

“Go get your pyjamas and hop in,” Bucky says, laying aside the fluffy towel he’d gotten for Charlotte and going back to collect another for Lydia.

This time, when he comes back, it’s to two squealing girls in the tub. Charlotte constructs a bubble mohawk atop Lydia’s head while she scrubs herself with the loofah, and Bucky gathers up the now-red washcloth to wipe more spaghetti sauce away. The girls giggle and play in the bubbles while Bucky checks the phone in his pocket - the one he’s ignored all evening, because watching twin girls is more a full-time job than his _actual_ full-time job. It’s just after nine, which is fine. They’ll only be a little late for bed.

“Right, out we come,” Bucky says, and holds his hands open, the towel between them. Charlotte stands first and is, in one smooth movement, plucked out of the water and bundled up in her towel. Lydia looks ready to protest, but she (thankfully) just lets Bucky do the same to her. He scrubs them dry with the efficiency of a man used to bathing four kids at one time, then nudges them in the direction of their respective pyjama piles.

After that is teeth brushing, which is not done overly well but again, Bucky’s done picking battles tonight. Their breath smells minty enough as he tucks them into their beds, and he reads them a picture book before turning the light off and disappearing into the hallway.

With all that done, the rest of the house feels incredibly quiet. He stops in the kitchen long enough to see that Lydia has attempted to eat her pasta off the floor and made a right mess of it. Bucky grabs a dishcloth and starts to clean up. It doesn’t take too long to have the kitchen spotless – apparently expensive wooden flooring does not stain the way shitty old linoleum does.

Bucky considers going into his bedroom, but instead goes into the living room and drops heavily onto the couch, letting himself rest for a moment. Fucking someone all night would’ve been less taxing than wrangling two children into dinner, a bath, and bed. This is why he never had kids.

Luckily for him, Lydia and Charlotte seem as tired as he is, and there’s not a peep from their bedroom. Bucky scrolls his phone aimlessly for a while, then dozes off, waking only when the door unlocks and light spills in from outside.

Steve enters the room with the hyperaware grace of someone who’s had a few drinks over dinner. Bucky watches through hooded eyes as Steve toes his shoes off by the door and checks the deadbolt. Bucky blinks, but his eyelids weigh a tonne and beg to be left in peace. He briefly considers letting them win, but his eyes flicker open again when Steve tries to carefully lay a blanket over him.

When their eyes meet, Bucky’s sleep-soft and Steve’s too-wide, they both freeze.

Fuck.

Bucky wonders if it’s too late now to do what he came here for - it certainly wouldn’t be a hardship to fist his hands in that hair, to feel the scrape of Steve’s impeccably groomed beard against his thighs, his ass, to let Steve claim whatever parts of him he wanted -

As quickly as the thoughts come, they disappear again. He’s also exhausted, drained from the two four-year-olds (and one of them was well-behaved!), and though he’s been able to put on a show under any condition, he just can’t be bothered.

“You have a bed, you know,” Steve says, quietly, but his voice breaks the spell and Bucky can tear his eyes away.

He blinks a few times and sits up, sighing as he glances at the phone that had dropped onto his chest when he fell asleep. “Yeah,” Bucky says, strangely, because having a bed in someone else’s house is just… weird.

“Good night,” Bucky offers, foregoing any more awkward interactions by turning and fleeing towards the room Steve gave him.

When he drops onto the mattress - soft enough to sink into, yet firm enough to support his body – Bucky’s mind lets him return to sleep, dreams plagued with a handsome man just out of reach.


	3. Chapter 3

The morning is heralded by an ungodly shriek, and though it pierces through Bucky’s sleeping brain, it doesn’t fully awaken him. It does, however, draw him from his rest into the liminal space between dreams and reality, the world where everything is soft and warm and a lot fuzzy around the edges.

Bucky remembers this sound from far too many mornings of his childhood and adolescence, the way someone - usually Judy or Liz - would wake him up by screaming directly in his ear. Perhaps this is another one of those days, only Ma isn’t at work - it’s her one day off, and Bucky thinks he can smell the sweet vanilla of pancakes, hear the rapid-fire popping of sizzling bacon. He’ll drag himself out of bed and make himself a coffee and reel the girls in one at a time to brush and braid their hair at the dining table, turning it from a sleep-rumpled bird's nest into something decent. They’ll eat together and there’ll be too little room, their elbows nudging as they slice into their breakfast, voices competing to be the loudest, to be _heard_ , but they’ll all come out of it well-fed and laughing anyway.

Then there’s a knee directly into Bucky’s bladder, pointy and with the full weight of a child behind it, and Bucky’s brain is no longer able to entertain the memories of his past. No, he’s startled into full wakefulness, and arrives there with a loud, “ _fuck_ ,” as he wrestles the creature in his arms off his body and onto the ridiculously comfortable bed beside him.

“ _Girls!_ ” Steve snaps from the doorway, and Bucky wants to say _fuck_ again, but instead he just curses loudly and colourfully in his brain.

 _Fuck_.

This isn’t home - not any iteration of it Bucky’s ever known, at any rate - and this isn’t one of his annoying little sisters he can just throw onto the bed at his side and wrestle into submission. This is an _actual_ child, belonging to someone who isn’t related to him by blood, and Bucky’s supposed to be a nanny.

 _Fuck_.

The shrieking that woke Bucky up is still going, and Bucky rolls over to spot the girl doing it. Yesterday the two girls had had different outfits on, and much different dispositions, but now Bucky can’t remember which girl put on the blue Elsa pyjamas and which went for the rainbow-glitter unicorn set. Bucky just glares at the girl on the floor, the Elsa one, who apparently doesn’t have lungs that need oxygen.

Steve grabs her and pulls her into his arms, with a scolding, “ _Charlotte!_ ” which means that the girl Bucky is pinning ( _gently_ ) to the bed with one arm must be Lydia. She’s grumbling but not screaming loud enough to get the police called on them, which, at this moment in time, is putting her higher on Bucky’s ‘Favourite Child’ list, despite the events of last night.

Bucky draws himself up and takes his arm off of Lydia, who clambers over him to escape the bed, wrapping her arms around Steve’s legs. Charlotte is still screaming, and is now flailing about, her fists and knees and feet aimed at Steve for having the nerve to try and contain her. To his credit, Steve really doesn’t seem to notice. Bucky takes the time, around his now-pounding head and damaged bladder, to admire the man, because _priorities_.

He’s shirtless, hair sticking out at odd angles, which is a gift bestowed upon Bucky to make up for his rude awakening, surely. Bucky lets his eyes rake over Steve’s chest - or what he can see around the writhing child anyway. Even when Bucky had met him last night, fully clothed, it had been clear that Steve was the sort of guy to work out. Bucky was thanking his lucky stars that, even if he was going to get kneed in the bladder at some stupidly early hour, at least he has well-defined abs and pecs to admire in the waking world. Steve looks like he’s just gotten out of bed, and while Bucky wishes he was just climbing _into_ bed with him, there are, unfortunately, two very awake girls who are also very mad to contend with.

“Anything I can do to help?” Bucky asks, brain finally remembering English around the pleasant sight of Steve in only low-hanging lounge pants.

Steve heaves a sigh, and Charlotte clocks him in the jaw. “Sweetie,” Steve says, though he does so through gritted teeth so it doesn’t come out as a cute pet name probably should, “you need to stop hitting Daddy.”

“He has my game and won’t give it b- _aa_ -ck,” Charlotte wails, reaching the sort of pitch that only dogs can hear. Bucky suspects all of Steve’s fancy glassware is going to shatter very soon.

Steve puts Charlotte onto the floor, who doesn’t leave. Instead she continues to complain the way Lydia did last night, only Lydia did not scream quite so much. “Did you take their StarkPads last night?” Steve asks, the picture of a man who has just woken up and is already capital-D Done.

“Yeah,” Bucky manages, sitting up and placing his feet on the floor, wriggling his toes in the expensive carpet. He gestures to the top of the wardrobe. “I put them behind my bag up there.”

“Thanks,” Steve says as he reaches into the closet, not straining on tiptoes the way Bucky had, the tall asshole. Bucky remains on the bed, watching the muscles of Steve’s shoulders flex, considering very seriously how long Steve could carry him for. Probably a while.

Then Bucky’s bag is dropping next to him on the bed, snapping his mind back to reality and nearly making him curse again. Bucky looks over at the expensive duffel, pleased to see that he’d zipped it fully shut last night. It probably wouldn’t make a good impression on Steve to have condoms flying about the room so early in the morning.

“ _What_ have you got in there?” Steve asks, pulling down the two tablets and handing them off without even a reprimand for the girls’ shitty behaviour. God, no wonder they’re absolute _brats_. “That thing weighs a tonne,” Steve explains, noticing a look on Bucky’s face that he must not have expected.

“Uh,” Bucky begins, eloquent as ever, pulling the bag closer to him. “Skincare.”

“Right,” Steve manages a wry smile, stopping now to rub at his jaw, fingers probing the small red mark Charlotte had left behind. “Sorry about that wake-up call. I was thinking maybe we could have breakfast and talk about the job, if you’re still interested.” The longer Steve talks, the more sheepish he sounds, and Bucky feels bad for the guy. He remembers Steve introducing him to the girls as their new nanny last night, which means there was evidently an _old_ nanny, and Bucky can only imagine where that poor human ended up. It’s been less than twenty-four hours and Steve’s kids have already behaved in ways his little sisters would’ve gotten a painful spanking for.

“Sure, breakfast is good.” Bucky’s brain doesn’t exactly run at full speed when he’s just woken up, regardless of whether it’s morning or not. He needs a shower and he needs a coffee.

Luckily for him, Steve’s clearly thought of everything. “I put a towel in the bathroom for you. The door locks. It should take half an hour for food to get here, so no rush.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, and Steve smiles politely, but doesn’t leave. He just stands there and kinda… waits. For something. Bucky doesn’t know what. “I’ll, uh - go have a shower, then.”

Steve continues to hesitate, but not for too long, thankfully. “Sorry about - everything. I know we haven’t gotten off to a great start. Things have been a bit… hectic, lately. I didn’t even catch your name last night.”

“Oh, right.” Bucky hadn’t really thought of introductions. All he’d thought about was, first and foremost, Steve’s dick. After that, it became a bit of a frantic rush to catch up with the sudden turn of events. By the time Bucky might have considered introducing himself, Steve was already long gone, and Lydia was trying to call the cops on him. “Bucky,” he says, standing and offering Steve a hand. They’re not exactly on even footing, given Steve’s friend had done the introductions for him when he made the booking.

“Bucky,” Steve says, with another little quirk to his lips as he shakes Bucky’s hand. “That’s different.”

“I’m different,” Bucky smiles, close to the sort of charming smile he’d use to reel in a guy like Steve in the club. Shame Steve hadn’t taken him up on the job he’d actually come to do - Steve’s just his type. Bucky likes the sort that could snap him in two with their bare hands.

Steve laughs in a way that surprises Bucky - there’s no restraint to it. It makes Bucky smile wider, more sincerely. “I bet you are,” Steve says, and is it wishful thinking or is Steve giving him a little once-over as he speaks? “I’m Steve. You probably already knew that.”

Bucky settles for nodding his head, giving Steve one more flirtatious smirk before turning to his bag. He’d pull a change of clothes out - he always packs a few for just in case, bodily fluids and all that - but he doesn’t want Steve to see what his skincare lie is hiding. Instead he places his hand on the zipper, and Steve - bless his soul – finally takes the hint.

“I’ll go order breakfast. I’ll see you soon.”

Bucky watches Steve leave, wondering just _how_ he wound up in this kind of situation. The lure of an expensive shower is too hard to resist, and Bucky throws his thoughts on the backburner.

\---

The shower is, as expected, a fucking miracle, and Bucky will tell Steve literally _anything_ if it means Bucky will get to use it again. Unfortunately, Bucky spends so long enjoying the shower to think of an excuse, an explanation, a _something_ that will explain why he’s in Steve’s home. Surely he will figure out that Bucky isn’t a nanny, and the whole gig will be up. Bucky’s not even sure why he’s played along this far - it’s probably something to do with how hot Steve is. Bucky’d be a fool to walk away before making an actual go for that dick and the body attached to it.

When Bucky emerges from his bedroom, freshly showered, hair half-dry and already forming the unruly sort of curls he knows will be a pain to tame later, the table is set for breakfast. It’s not the breakfast bar that Bucky had fed the girls at last night, but the actual, formal dining table. In the centre is a spread of food that should feed more people than actually attending, unless Steve’s forgotten to tell him he invited the whole fucking building to join them. Bucky can’t discern everything by smell alone, but there’s a sweetness that hints to pancakes or waffles or French toast, the unmistakable smoke of crispy bacon, and then a number of other dishes in between.

Steve sits opposite the entrance to the dining room, so when Bucky walks in he gets an eyeful of him. Steve’s dressed now - _shame_ \- but the shirt he wears is a half-size too small for him, and Bucky tries not to be too obvious as he looks at the outline of Steve’s nipples. He’s only human, after all.

Steve maybe notices, if the way he turns a little pink is anything to go by. Bucky reels himself in and looks instead to the other two people at the table. Lydia and Charlotte are both eating from their plates, eyes and grubby little fingers focused solely on the two tablets laid out in front of them. When Bucky looks up, Steve’s blushing more.

“I know it’s not good for them,” Steve begins, even as he indicates Bucky’s chair with an open palm - there’s already a plate and cutlery set up for him. “But we wouldn’t be able to have a conversation without distracting them with something.”

“I’m not here to judge,” Bucky explains as he sits down, sinking back into the luxuriously upholstered chair. No wonder rich people have killer posture. They can afford furniture that doesn’t hurt your spine just from sitting in it. “Whatever makes the day easier, sometimes.” He’s not lying for Steve’s benefit either - which is something he has to do with other clients. Telling them they’re attractive is the biggest and most common lie Bucky tells, but it’s not the only one.

But Bucky’s raised kids - or helped raise kids. He knows what it’s like. He had, on occasion, paid the girls to be quiet for extended periods of time, putting his measly high-school job pay cheque towards the cause. Kids aren’t easy, by any means. He understands where Steve’s coming from, completely.

Steve’s shoulders sag at Bucky’s response, and he leans in to start serving himself. Had he been waiting for Bucky to start eating? The girls clearly hadn’t.

Bucky follows Steve’s lead along the table, starting with the savouries to one side and finishing with the sweets at the other. His plate is crammed with better quality food than Bucky’s had in a while. They don’t waste time with any talking, because Steve is clearly as hungry as Bucky is. They both dig into their meals, the only sounds in the dining room the clattering of forks on plates and some weird Norwegian nursery rhyme coming from one of the tablets.

Once their pace has slowed down - now Bucky’s eating mostly because the food is there, not because he’s hungry - Steve pushes his plate away and lays his hands on the table. “So, what did the agency tell you when they sent you on this job, Bucky?”

Bucky blanks and, instead of answering the question, pops a piece of bacon into his mouth. He uses the chewing time to come up with a plan. Steve had said last night that Bucky had saved him, or something like that. He’d clearly been so run off his feet that Bucky’s arrival had been a pleasant surprise. “That you needed me as urgently as possible?” Bucky ventures, trying to hold the question from his tone.

A relieved smile floods Steve’s face, and Bucky almost preens under the knowledge he got the right answer. He’s used to leading men along in the bedroom, not in the dining room in front of their kids. Still, it seems to be a transferable skill. “I really did. And thank you, again, for showing up. I had a business meeting that I wouldn’t have been able to make otherwise.”

Bucky doesn’t dwell on a business meeting at nearly 8pm on a Friday night. Must be how Steve affords such a nice apartment. “It’s my pleasure. They weren’t that bad.”

Lydia’s ears burn, and she looks up long enough to glare at Bucky, then returns her stare to the screen. “That’s nice of you to say,” Steve answers in a way that suggests he does not believe Bucky whatsoever. “Did they tell you about the wages or the living conditions? Anything like that?”

“Nothing at all,” Bucky says, picking up another waffle that he doesn’t need. He can’t do this job - not when he has a real(-ish) job that involves all sorts of lewd acts for money - but Bucky doesn’t really want to rush himself out of the apartment. He’ll take the food and play along for a bit and hit the road when he’s done. It’s not like Steve could actually track Bucky through the agency – at least not the _nanny_ agency, at any rate.

“Right, well, I’m sure you gathered that it’s a live-in position. That’s your bedroom, as long as you’re working here. All bills are covered, and you can order any food you want. I provide full health insurance, whatever you need, and there’s a weekly stipend.”

Bucky blinks, his brain stuttering to a halt.

He could _live_ in this amazing apartment, have _full_ health insurance, _and_ get a weekly stipend? Fuck, what a gig. Steve’s kids might be brats, but Bucky would put up with them for an all-expenses paid life. “What’s the stipend?” Bucky asks almost breathlessly, not sure this job could get any better.

“I send $1000 a week to the agency. They said they take a cut, but I’m not sure how much it is.”

Bucky isn’t sure he can even blink any more. A thousand dollars _a_ _week_? On top of the fact that Steve is paying for his board and bills? Bucky makes more than that a week working in his escort job, but that’s just to cover the obscene rent on his shitty Upper West Side apartment, and all the bills that come with it. To think he could be making that much money just looking after kids - a job he did for free growing up?

“Is that okay, Bucky?” Steve asks, and Bucky realises he must have been silent for too long. _A thousand dollars a week_. It’s obscene. “It’s a lot of work. The agency recommended that as a figure, with the hours you’d have to take on, but we can negotiate if you’re happy to work long-term.”

Bucky just about chokes on air, because it sounds like Steve is offering him _more money_. It takes four hours of Bucky pretending to want to have sex with someone to make a thousand dollars, after booking fees and agency cuts get taken out. Sure, this is more work, but it’s in a nicer area, and Bucky could make headway on paying off his student loans and credit card debt without bills and rent to cover.

“No, it’s fine. It’s good. They just, the agency, I mean, they usually take about half of that,” Bucky explains, putting on a woe-is-me kind of expression, a half-formed plan coming into play. If Bucky can stop Steve from checking in with the agency, maybe he’ll have a chance here.

Despite nannying not being Bucky’s career, the manipulation of men (sometimes women) for money kind of is, and Bucky’s an expert at it. Once he flutters his little eyelashes he has a way of getting what he wants, and Bucky uses it to his advantage. Steve looks thoughtful for a moment, glancing at both girls, before sighing and turning back to Bucky. “We can make a private contract, if that’s easier. I’d rather all my money go to you, since you’re doing the work.”

 _More of your money could certainly go to me,_ Bucky thinks, but doesn’t say aloud. A man hiring him to be a full-time, live-in nanny for his kids probably doesn’t also want to be propositioned over breakfast with said kids.

“That sounds good,” Bucky says, still somewhat disbelieving of his own luck. Finally, the sort of stable job his Ma is always hassling him to get whenever he visits. Finally, an expensive house to call somewhat his own. This morning has certainly taken a number of turns that Bucky hadn’t been anticipating. “I’ll just have to see what I can do about my apartment.” Despite Bucky’s own studio being too shitty and small to even fit a full-sized refrigerator, it wasn’t falling apart, and he’d been lucky to get it. Signing on to a twelve-month lease now felt like a bit of a stupid decision but had made the most sense at the time. He still had five months left, and certainly didn’t want to add breaking lease costs onto his existing pile of debt.

Steve waves a hand dismissively, like a half-year of rent is nothing to him. Which, now that Bucky considers the place he’s staying, it probably is. “Give me the number of your landlord. I’ll have legal sort out the lease while they’re drafting up a contract.”

Bucky can’t deny it - hearing Steve talk business is kinda hot. He’d gladly sit down to dinner every night if Steve was going to have stories about _getting legal to sort it out_.

God, Bucky’s fantasies of being a rich, well-kept househusband were already out of control and he’d spoken to Steve for a total of thirty minutes. This is bad.

Just then, Steve’s phone starts to ring, a default tone that’s loud and intimidating, though Bucky thinks anyone who doesn’t silence their phones these days is ballsy. “Speaking of work,” Steve says, picking up his phone and apologising before ducking through the one door Bucky hadn’t been past - Steve’s bedroom.

Bucky glances at both girls, but they’re so absorbed in their weird videos and games that they don’t notice Bucky. He figures he may as well put himself to good use and gathers up the dishes. He waves a hand in front of both screens as he does so - Lydia makes a frustrated noise, while Charlotte merely tilts her head to avoid the obstruction. How ridiculous.

Now that Bucky knows the secret of the dishwasher he loads their plates in easily, then returns to the dining room to pack away the leftover food into containers. On his adventures last night Bucky had stumbled upon a cupboard with Tupperware inside, which goes to show that rich people are just like normal folks, too.

Bucky’s parcelling everything up neatly, the product of having a mother who was anal about organisation, when Steve pops his head into the kitchen.

“I’ve gotta run out to get some work done. Do you mind getting the girls off those stupid things?” Steve asks in the tone of a man who is not used to hearing someone say no to him. He’s already turned to leave when Bucky calls him back.

“What sort of discipline do you use here?” Bucky asks, because he just knows he’s in for a battle. So far his interactions with the twins have come down to suffering their wrath when they lose their precious technology. Bucky may as well know what behaviour management system, if any, Steve has in place.

Steve’s blank look leads Bucky to believe that there is nothing.

“Do you have, like, consequences? For when they do something wrong?” Steve continues to look blankly at him. “Like, if they hit you, they go to timeout or something?”

“No,” Steve replies at last, as if that’s obvious and normal. “You can figure something out.” He adds, but not dismissively, like he’s actually willing to trust the upbringing of his girls to a man he just met.

“Okay,” Bucky chimes with false brightness, “have a good day.”

Steve looks relieved and says a goodbye to Bucky, then mumbles something to each girl on his way out.

Which leaves Bucky back where he was the previous night, preparing for battle with two children.

No one ever said Bucky was the type of guy to back down from a challenge.

—

Bucky does, however, wish he’d backed down from this particular challenge.

Removing the tablets once again led to riots from the children. Charlotte had apparently been cooperative last night out of a mixture of surprise and hunger. Now that she’s well-fed and familiar with Bucky, all bets are off.

Growing up, Bucky had been unable to send any of the girls to their rooms - partly because they shared two bedrooms between the lot of them, and partly because they’d just take it as an excuse to play with their toys. Thus, the timeout spot had been born. Put them in a boring spot, facing the wall, and they’ll sit and sulk and eventually say sorry and everyone can go on with their lives.

So, when Lydia protests Bucky’s approach to separating them from their technology by screaming and pushing a dining chair over, Bucky picks her up and places her in the living room. She is placed facing a particularly bland wall, with nothing of remote interest on it apart from its off-white colour.

“I can tell you’re upset, but you are _not_ allowed to push over the chair,” Bucky says in his most firm, level voice. It’s a real throwback, having to play this part again. Bucky’s sisters are all grown now, and it’s been even longer since he was crouching down in front of them, explaining to them what they did wrong. “You need to sit here for five minutes and then we’ll talk about what you did.”

Naturally, as soon as Bucky stands up, Lydia runs off.

So Bucky goes and collects her. He picks her up and holds her at a distance, avoiding swinging legs. Bucky carefully places her back down on the floor, facing the plain white wall, and walks away.

Lydia runs off again.

The cycle repeats, over and over, to the point where Bucky can hear the Benny Hill theme song in the background and wonders if Jarvis is playing it or he’s actually going crazy. It’s a 50-50 at this stage.

Charlotte remains at the dining table watching them, for which Bucky is thankful - he wouldn’t put it past her to start climbing up his closet to retrieve the StarkPads while he was distracted.

Back and forth they go for what is nearly a full hour before Lydia finally gives up and sprawls onto the floor, beating her fists into the carpet. Bucky heaves a sigh of relief and goes into the kitchen to finish putting away all the contained breakfast foods when he hears noise from the living room. Bucky stacks the containers in the fridge and then walks into the living room, where Charlotte has gathered up some toy horses (from _where_?) and is playing with Lydia.

With a sigh, Bucky intervenes. “Charlotte, Lydia did the wrong thing and you need to leave her to think about what she did. You can play with your horses in your room.” Bucky almost surprises himself with how level his voice is. These days he can’t go through one session with a minorly difficult customer without calling up one of the other workers to complain, and yet here he is, speaking calmly and firmly to a child about their actions.

Maybe child-rearing is like riding a bike and you never forget, though Bucky wouldn’t like his chances cycling these days.

“No!” Charlotte says petulantly, and there’s that high voice from this morning again, shooting through Bucky’s brain and reigniting his headache.

“Charlotte, you can play in your room or not at all. Make the choice,” Bucky’s control is shifting, just a little, but he musters up a terse smile to try and convince her to take the option he wants her to.

“I want to play with Lydia _now_!” Charlotte carries on, loud and angry, stomping on the ground in an attempt to intimidate him.

“Charlotte,” Bucky snaps, too fast, before taking a breath. Maybe it is like riding a bike, in that it’s definitely going to be wobbly after a few years off. “Play in your room or not at all. Choose.”

Charlotte chooses a third option, which is to throw her horses at Bucky. They’re small and plastic and don’t hurt, but the fact that the kids are so willing to resort to screaming and lashing out when they don’t get their way is telling. Bucky doesn’t think Steve is a bad parent by any means - if anything, he thinks the previous nannies did them a disservice by succumbing to their rich whims, rather than treating them like children who need to learn proper behaviour.

“Right, you can go in the timeout spot, too.”

Which means Bucky has to pick another place for her to go. Luckily there’s a lot of Steve’s apartment that is boring. He carries Charlotte into the entryway, so she can’t see Lydia, and plonks her down facing the front door, but at a safe distance. He doesn’t want Steve accidentally taking out his own daughter when he gets home, after all.

Charlotte, unlike Lydia, is not a runner. She’s a screamer. Bucky tries to give her the spiel about her behaviour and about the timeout, which is only five minutes - nothing in the grand scheme of things – but she’s very clearly not listening. She she spends five endless minutes screaming her lungs out.

In that time, Bucky returns to Lydia and tries to talk to her, but it’s nearly impossible to be heard over the racket from the entrance. “What do you need to do?” Bucky asks, quite plainly meaning the toppled-over chair still on its side in the dining room.

Lydia looks at him, completely lost. “I’m sorry?” She attempts, and Bucky waits, but nothing else is forthcoming.

“Thank you for apologising,” Bucky says, “but you need to go and pick the chair up since you’re the one who knocked it over.”

Lydia frowns, clearly expecting there to be a greater catch involved. “That’s it?”

Charlotte stops to take a breath, and Bucky is able to hear the ringing in his ears moments before it kicks off again. “You can go brush your teeth then play in your room. If you go and be silly with Charlotte, you’ll have to come back to the timeout spot again.”

Lydia continues to look sceptical. “So… I just need to pick the chair up?”

“Sure,” Bucky says. What else would there be?

“You’re way nicer than Miss Josie was!” Lydia chirps, all injustices - the hour worth of chasing around, namely - forgotten. She bounces to her feet, runs into the dining room to right the chair, and then pokes her head back into the living room. Bucky is crouched on the floor still, staring blankly at the space where Lydia had been moments ago. “Thanks Bucky!”

Bucky offers Lydia a tentative, “you’re welcome,” but she’s already gone.

The only thing left to do now is try to talk some sense into Charlotte.

Charlotte, who has been screaming for five minutes now. The pitch hasn’t wavered. Perhaps singing is in her future. Or, perhaps, some heavy metal screamo type of thing. She’d kill it.

“Charlotte,” Bucky attempts, and she only screams louder. “Charlotte, I want to talk to you, then you can go and play.”

The word _play_ happens to be the magic word and, like flicking a switch, silence descends upon the house. Bucky’s ears are ringing, and he can hear his own words echoing back to him. “You had to sit here because you threw your toys and that hurt me.”

“What do you mean?” Charlotte asks, eyes narrowed, face bright red.

“When you threw the horses, they hurt me.”

“You’re a grown up. They can’t hurt you,” Charlotte petulantly insists, rubbing her cheek on the carpet. Oh, to have carpet soft enough to _want_ to touch it. Bucky is lucky that his is only worn through in a few spots.

Bucky sits down on the floor, because he’s crouched a lot today and he’s kinda sick of it now. He doesn’t work out, and all this squatting - while good for his ass - is not exactly comfortable. “It didn’t hurt my body, but it hurt my feelings.”

“Why?”

“Because when you throw things at me it makes me think you want to hurt me. Even if you don’t,” Bucky tries reasoning, but Charlotte just looks confused. “How would you feel if I threw something at you?”

Charlotte glares, suspecting trickery, before eventually saying, “sad.”

“Right. So I feel sad now, too.” Which is a blatant lie - Bucky doesn’t actually care that she threw something at him. He mostly cares that this behaviour they see no problem with, and if Steve is going to pay him an obscene amount of money to be their nanny, he’s going to do the best damn job he can. “What do you have to say?”

“Sorry Bucky,” Charlotte huffs reluctantly into the carpet.

Bucky will take it, mostly because it’s not high-pitched screaming. “Thank you. And I saw you hit your daddy this morning. I want you to think about how he feels, too.”

Charlotte, who is probably only answering to keep Bucky happy and not because she can empathise, says, “sad?” again.

Again, Bucky will take what he can get. “Right. So you can say sorry to him when he comes home, too. Now, go brush your teeth and you can play.”

Charlotte, just like her sister, bolts off down the hallway. Bucky takes five minutes on the couch to centre himself and check the damage to his hearing. Then he’s up and into the girls’ room, joining them on the floor for playtime.

—

By the time Steve comes home in the evening (Bucky almost feels sorry for him, except he remembers Steve has a fancy-ass penthouse and a stack of money and then he feels less sorry), the girls are sitting in the living room playing a game involving cars, train tracks, and the plastic ponies. Both of them have had their blonde hair braided neatly down their backs. In return, Bucky let them each braid part of his hair, which explains why he has two very poorly formed braids coming out of the space above each ear.

As soon as Steve’s inside the door, he’s accosted by two girls moving faster than the speed of light. Lydia reaches him first and wraps herself around his legs in a huge hug, talking about all the fun stuff they did that day - and conveniently leaving out the part when she got in trouble for throwing a tantrum. Charlotte waits her turn with surprising patience, sidling up to Steve when Lydia runs back to her game on the floor.

Bucky’s certainly not eavesdropping, but he does overhear Charlotte saying, “sorry I hit you, Daddy,” and he can’t help the proud smile on his face.

Steve can’t hide his surprise either and, as soon as he’s told her all is forgiven, he’s giving Bucky a look that says they’ll be talking about this later.

But for now Steve comes inside and drops onto the couch beside Bucky, leaning forward with elbows on knees to try and work out the rules to a game which has no rules, and Bucky feels a horrible kind of pleasure in the domesticity of it all.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve isn’t sure what he did to earn this sort of good fortune. He’s not the sort of man to pray with any kind of frequency, though his mother would roll over in her (currently unused, thankfully) grave if he said that aloud. He doesn’t pay a tithe to the church, or volunteer his time, or sacrifice animals to a bloodthirsty god. Steve does _nothing_ , and yet here he is, blessed with the only nanny who has been able to handle the girls.

It’s been a long, tense week in which he’s expecting things to go horribly, disastrously wrong. For Bucky to storm out, proclaiming the girls too challenging or Steve too difficult or the pay too low. Every day when Steve gets home, he dreads stepping out of the elevator because he dreads seeing Bucky, bags packed, ready to leave.

And every day, Bucky surprises him. The girls are well-mannered most days when he gets home, or else they’re sitting in the timeout spot and Bucky turns to him and says, “don’t you _dare_ speak to them, they’ve been naughty,” in a terse voice, and Steve thinks, quite ridiculously, that he could get very used to this. An ordinary afternoon with a nanny would involve coming home to the apartment in some state of disarray, something or other destroyed, but not with Bucky. The girls still throw their tantrums - of course they do, they’re _children_ \- but Bucky takes it all in stride.

Despite his curiosities, Steve isn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth. He is going to take it and run with it, as much as he can, because good things are often fleeting in the Rogers’ household.

There is the sound of a key in the latch, and Steve looks up from the Sunday paper, the reading of which is a tradition he had inherited from his father despite being an infant when the man died.

Bucky enters, pulling behind him two suitcases on wheels - one full-sized, the other carry-on only. He’d spent the first week going between his apartment and Steve’s, picking up enough stuff for a few days, at least until Steve had sorted everything out with his lease. Now that the paperwork’s all gone through - Steve bearing the break lease costs and telling Bucky they were waived - Bucky’s officially moving in. That should not be as exciting to Steve as it is. It’s merely a work arrangement, nothing more.

“ _Is that really it?_ ” is what Steve longs to say, but he keeps his mouth politely shut as he folds his newspaper closed and lays it on the coffee table. He knows that to do so is a risk in itself. Undoubtedly the girls will find some way to destroy it. At least Steve got to read the sports pages, which are always his favourite. “You managed to get everything?” Steve asks instead, standing and moving to help, even as Bucky demonstrates surprising skill in pulling both of them at once.

“I don’t have much,” Bucky says simply. There’s no shame to his words, just a statement of fact, delivered with only passing interest like any other mundane remark might be. “What I do have is quality, though,” Bucky adds with a smirk and what Steve thinks might be a wink, but he’s probably imagining things. Steve had been in motion, intending to take the larger of the suitcases, but that look stops him in his tracks.

Besides, Bucky’s already turned himself towards his room and is making quick work of dragging his things in. “Do you want a hand?” Steve asks belatedly, trailing behind Bucky like a lost puppy.

Bucky’s immediate, sharp, “no,” is soon after joined by a, “thank you.”

Steve holds his hands up, taking the obvious dismissal for what it is and not pushing the issue. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Thank you,” Bucky says again as he drops to his knees and pulls the largest suitcase over first, looking up at him with his hands on the zipper. It reminds Steve of last Saturday morning, when Bucky had been so protective of his bag.

(It was also the first morning Steve had really _seen_ Bucky, his hair flattened to one side of his head and flaring up off the other, the shirt he wore to bed hanging askew on his body, revealing a sweet, pale curve of collarbone that Steve could just-)

Steve clears his throat. “I was going to take the girls shopping today, if you wanted to come,” he offers, but doesn’t wait to hear Bucky’s answer. The man clearly desires privacy, and Steve’s going to give it to him. He’s not going to read into facial expression and gestures that probably aren’t even there, and - if they _are_ \- are not intended in the way Steve is reading them.

He hightails it back out into the living room, where - despite being in easy reach of small hands - the newspaper remains perfectly intact. Lydia is quietly brushing the hair on a doll and Charlotte is trying to build the highest tower she can using Lego. Steve has never known the two of them to be so peaceful but, again, gift horse - mouth.

Steve’s instead going to unfold his paper, hold it open in front of him, and think a little longer on Bucky’s collarbone.

—

It doesn’t take Bucky long to unpack, but then he didn’t really have much to put away, Steve thinks. When he emerges from his room a half-hour later, he’s changed clothes. Steve glances up and means for it to be momentary, but his eyes linger: Bucky in indigo-wash jeans that are cut close enough to his body they may as well be a second skin; a button-down with floral embroidery so intricate it takes Steve a moment to notice that the spaces between are mesh, not fabric, a glimpse into the pale flesh of Bucky’s chest; and then a simple black coat over top.

Steve must be gaping, because Bucky saunters on over to the couch and drops down beside him with ease. Bucky doesn’t even appear to notice the sharp edges of the sequins the girls glued all over the couch as he arches his back and carelessly, artfully drapes an arm along the back pillows. He’s close enough that, with a small movement, his arm would be across Steve’s shoulders. _God_. These are the things about Bucky that drive him to madness - moves that would be overt flirtations in any other instance are delivered with an air of nonchalance.

“I heard we were going shopping,” Bucky purrs, and a sentence that would ordinarily not be so sexy suddenly sounds like the filthiest bedroom talk.

Steve clears his throat and redirects his attention to the newspaper, feigning great interest in the finance section even as he feels his face warm. “Yeah, I just thought I’d take the girls out.”

“When do we leave?” Bucky asks, leaning a little closer into Steve’s space, as if to read the paper over his shoulder, and Steve can’t take it anymore.

Tony’s made plenty of jokes about Steve fucking the nanny ever since he got one. While some of the women who have worked in Steve’s home have been attractive, Steve has never before looked at one of them and thought about sleeping with them. It just didn’t feel right. Their sole purpose was to care for the girls, not to be an object for him to admire or take advantage of. Steve knows that, had he brought it up, he probably wouldn’t have been turned down. He also knows that it would be due to his position, the one paying for their entire lives, and not the fact that they were interested in him.

Steve’s never thought about anything other than being a polite, considerate co-worker to the nannies who enter his home… until now.

He makes quick work of folding the newspaper up, wondering if he can get away with changing his clothes long enough to make his interest in Bucky less obvious. “Half an hour?” Steve suggests, standing up and starting off towards his bedroom. “I just need to get changed.”

“Of course you do,” Bucky says with a smirk that is so knowing, Steve feels himself flush even more. “I’ll get the girls ready.” He adds, and then the spell is broken.

For a brief moment, Steve could’ve entertained the fantasy of Bucky in his home for a completely different reason. It would be just the two of them on the couch, and he could let Bucky’s fingers brush the nape of his neck, then slide down the opposite shoulder, wrapping his smaller body around Steve’s.

But Bucky is here for the girls, no matter what his behaviour might imply, nor what Steve’s brain might (optimistically) suggest.

Steve takes almost the entire half-hour he’s allotted to himself in his room. He contemplates another shower, but then he thinks that Bucky will be insufferable if he notices. All Steve is able to do is sit on his bed, already in the clothes he plans on wearing out, and wait.

It was like this with Peggy, too, a flame that ignited immediately and burned out too quickly. He still remembers with fondness their first meeting: the pair of them conveniently seated next to each other in business class, the way Steve had offered her his apartment for the night - the way she’d countered and invited him to her hotel room. Steve was quick to fall, not just into lust but into love too. Even if they had been together for a few months at most, depending on how you defined their relationship, it had still been special to him.

Was that what Bucky was? Another chance meeting, another flare of something that would burn itself out much sooner than later?

Steve sighs. Maybe Tony has a point. Maybe Steve _does_ need to get laid. It’s a shame that Peggy’s stuck in Europe, a winter airport closure and an unpredictable work schedule seeing her next visit delayed at least a few weeks. Even if they hadn’t worked out romantically, they knew each other’s bodies well enough that they sometimes found themselves in bed together even years after they’d ended things. It was never a bad time for either of them.

A knock jars Steve from his thoughts, of memories and fantasies intermingling, of two very different humans with the very same effect on him.

“Coming!” Steve calls and stands, smoothing out his clothes so it doesn’t look as if he’s just spent half an hour sitting and considering all the problems in his life.

When he grips the door handle, Steve is resolute. He can put aside his attraction to Bucky for the girls, because this is what’s best for them. Within a week, Bucky has shown himself to be better than any nanny to date at handling them, and Steve doesn’t need to ruin that with the desires of his body.

Besides, they’re shopping for the girls’ birthday outfits, and Steve loves letting them go wild in the store. Something about treating them to whatever they want makes him feel a bone-deep sense of accomplishment, providing for his own children in a way his mother hadn’t been able to - though not for lack of trying.

Today, like every other day, is about the girls, he reminds himself as he opens the door.

Lydia and Charlotte stand lined up in front of him, matching, beaming grins on their faces. Bucky clearly let the girls pick what they want to wear, as Charlotte is in an oversized sweater and leggings while Lydia has opted for a rainbow tutu dress. He has, somehow, managed to reason with them, and both are rugged up in coats, beanies, and gloves. It’s late-February and, though the worst of the winter chill is almost over, it’s not worth the arguments when they get five minutes down the road and both girls start complaining of being cold.

“Bucky did our hair!” Lydia says proudly, twirling both tiny braids around her fingers, as if Bucky is her friend and not someone she threw juice on yesterday because it was apple, not orange.

Steve smiles and crouches down, tugging on each plait in turn and delighting in the giggles elicited by the girls. “Very beautiful. Bucky is pretty talented, isn’t he?”

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know,” Bucky cuts in with a smirk, before picking up a small backpack in each hand. Steve recognises them immediately - they’d been gifts from last Christmas. Despite being four years old ( _almost five, Dad!_ ), Tony had somehow decided the girls needed portable chargers and speakers built into their custom, heart-shaped bags. “Right, we’ve got a drink bottle each and a couple snacks. Anything else you want me to bring?”

Steve never really goes out with the girls without some preparation from a nanny, and on the odd occasions he has, he’s always forgotten something. Steve’s just not much the preparation sort - he’d rather get on with it, and if the girls get hungry or thirsty it isn’t a hardship to get them something from McDonald’s on the way. “That sounds pretty good to me,” he answers, imbuing his words with the confidence of a man who knows what kids need to take with them when they go places.

“Right then, arms out,” Bucky instructs, and slides the backpacks onto each girls’ back. The straps struggle over the padding their coats provide, and Bucky crouches down to make adjustments, giving Steve a lovely view down the open gape of his shirt. Steve politely looks once, then turns to his phone to message the driver. Steve doesn’t want to say _his_ driver, specifically, because he works for the building, but Steve knows he gets a priority. That’s just what happens when Tony Stark is both your friend and landlord.

Once both girls are loaded up, Bucky nods at Steve and they make their way down to the garage.

—

As soon as they’re seated in the car, Lydia takes her beanie and gloves off and Charlotte complains about being hungry. Bucky takes it all in stride, turning over the back of his chair to help to pull Lydia’s things off and tuck them away in her bag while simultaneously fishing around in Charlotte’s for the snack. “So, you drive?” Bucky asks as he works, evidently a master at multitasking.

“I know how,” Steve answers, feeling a little as though he is being interrogated. Bucky affects an air of disinterest, but Steve can sense the sharp intelligence beneath that. “Not in the city, though.”

Bucky hums in thought as he tucks away both girls’ backpacks, Charlotte happily working her way through some trail mix while Lydia stares out the window.

“You?” Steve asks, simply to fill the void of silence in the car.

Bucky raises one eyebrow at Steve. “Do you think my apartment has parking? I don’t even have a full-sized refrigerator.”

“You do too,” Steve answers quickly, and watches as Bucky takes a moment to figure out what he means. It must be strange, to live like this - going from place to place. Perhaps Bucky’s only done live-out nanny roles up until now, so he hasn’t had to sacrifice his own space before. Though Steve _did_ do some digging online and the place Bucky was living looks smaller than the bedroom Steve’s given him anyway. Definitely no parking spots there. “So that’s a no?”

Bucky merely shrugs, appearing ambivalent to the whole thing. “Never saw much need to in a place like this.” To prove his point, Bucky gestures at the scene around them - gridlock, even mid-morning on a Sunday. This is exactly why Steve doesn’t drive in the city. It’s painful. “This your car, then?”

“Kind of,” Steve answers, though Bucky is clearly unsatisfied with that and makes a noise to encourage him to continue. “Tony buys the cars that the staff use. We usually take this one because it has the car seats already installed, but there’s a few others.”

“Tony?” Bucky asks, and Steve spies a glimmer of something in Bucky’s eyes that he doesn’t expect to see. It’s a keen interest, but he’s playing it off well. Steve wonders how a man as sharp as Bucky got into nannying, of all things. “A friend of yours?”

Steve chuckles, because Tony is absolutely his friend, though he’s not sure that one word can singularly define a man like Tony Stark and any relationship with him. “Sure. He’s the one in the big building over there,” Steve mentions, and - just to show Bucky, not for any other reason - leans over his lap to point at the pinnacle of Stark Tower where it peeks out around the other buildings.

Bucky laughs, right in Steve’s ear. He almost forgets to return to his seat, what with how nice it is smelling Bucky’s cologne, feeling his laughter. “You’re friends with Tony Stark?”

“Don’t know any other Tony’s,” Steve admits with a small shrug, settling back in position. Bucky’s face is a mess of different emotions that Steve can’t quite pull apart. “Anyway. I own a motorbike.” It is not the most subtle of redirections, but it works on Bucky, who turns his attention from whatever thoughts he’s have back to Steve.

“You’ll have to take me for a ride one day,” Bucky all but purrs, turning so he can slide one knee onto the seat between them. Steve doesn’t know how he moves so elegantly when his jeans look like they’d hold him rigid, but he’s grateful for it nonetheless.

Steve wants to say yes. He wants to ask to go back to the compound now and fire up the old girl hiding away down there, take her for a spin. A day trip could take them a few hours anywhere - certainly away from the traffic and the fact that the two of them alone would be a bad idea. “Then who’d watch the girls?” Steve asks, aiming for levity, as though his mind hadn’t already leapt ahead to Bucky’s front pressed against his back, arms tight around his waist.

Before Bucky can answer, they’re pulling over, already at their destination. The classical facade of the luxury department store stretches up in front of them, American flags fluttering in the breeze. Bucky gets out of the car first as his door opens onto the sidewalk, then folds his chair so he can get the girls out of their booster seats. Steve, meanwhile, waits for a lull in traffic to duck out on the roadside, quickly dashing around the back of the vehicle to find Bucky straightening both girls up.

“Anything particular on the shopping list?” Bucky asks, hovering behind the girls as Steve leads the way.

“Well, their birthdays are coming up in a few weeks, so I figure we’ll pick out some dresses for the party,” Steve explains, holding the door open for Charlotte, Lydia, and Bucky to enter. “Other than that, I just thought it’d be a nice day out.”

“Really?” Bucky asks with interest as he smoothly steps in Charlotte’s way, stopping her from dashing over to some glittery display. “What day?”

“March ninth,” Steve says, taking Lydia’s hand and dividing the task of keeping them on track between the two of them. She is clearly not impressed by this, and tugs him every way she can, but Steve barely notices the pull.

“Two little Pisces, huh?” Bucky pulls slightly ahead of Steve and Lydia here, keeping Charlotte boxed in at his side, heading towards the escalators. “I hear they can be unpredictable. And emotional.”

Steve snorts, lifting Lydia up by her hand as she refuses to step onto the escalator. She’s barely the weight Steve lifts in the gym, and she giggles despite herself at being swung through the air onto the step. “You know a lot about star signs, huh?”

Bucky turns to look down at Steve, a few steps ahead of him. “Only cause I’m the same. Good to know your own weaknesses, right?”

“March, too?” Steve asks, pulling Lydia back from trying to climb over the escalator handrail.

“Tenth,” Bucky replies, with a smirk. “So I guess you gotta get me something nice today, too.”

Steve doesn’t answer that - mostly because they’ve reached the top of the escalator and are entering the magical land of girls clothes, but there’s a small part of him that thinks of how Bucky would react to being treated to lavish gifts. He’d probably like it. Steve thinks he’d probably like giving them, too.

“We’ll see,” Steve says, and then looks at the sprawling land of racks and shelves and mannequins. “Okay, girls. You can go find something you want for your party, but remember it’s at Playgarden, so pick something you can run around in.”

Bucky places a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder, and somehow manages to get in Lydia’s way before she darts off. Steve watches as Bucky crouches down and looks both girls square in the eyes. “There’s no running or screaming in here. This is a shop, not a playground. Got it?” His voice is stern, brooking no argument. Bucky looks between each girl, not releasing them until they both say yes. When he stands up and lets them go, Lydia can barely contain herself and speed-walks towards a display of unicorn-themed outfits. Charlotte weaves in between the shoe racks.

“Some of this stuff is pretty expensive,” Bucky states idly, stepping up to the main display and checking the tag on a dress. “A thousand dollars for a dress? For a four-year-old?”

“Well, they’ll be five soon enough,” Steve attempts to excuse the behaviour, even though he knows it's obscene. He spent his childhood in patched-up hand-me-downs from kids throughout the neighbourhood, padding out shoes that were too large just to extend their window of usefulness.

Steve looks at Bucky, who looks right back at him. Bucky’s stare usually has something mischievous to it - flirtatious, even, but Steve’s trying not to think too much about that. Now, however, he’s _really looking_ , like he can see past Steve’s clothes and his skin and into his soul. He feels painfully naked in the middle of the department store, waiting for Bucky to show some mercy and tell him what’s going on in that brain of his.

Bucky seems to find what he’s looking for and sighs, turning to pick up a tiny pair of shoes. “You grew up poor too, huh?” He asks, off-handed but for the way he’s watching Steve out of the corner of his eyes.

“What?” Steve’s answer is defensive, unthinking. It’s not something he likes to look back on, his early years. Not because of any fault of his mother’s - she did the absolute best she could - but just because poverty isn’t something to flaunt.

Bucky shrugs. “I get it. Ma called up the other day, said her refrigerator’s on its way out, and I’m out here trying to piece together the cash for one of those fancy ones with a touchscreen on them.” He puts the tiny shoes back down, and then takes a cardigan off the rack. Steve hovers by Bucky, though his eyes flit between the girls, keeping a watch on their location. There are also a multitude of staff members desperate to make a sale who hover nearby, helping the girls get things down off high-up shelves. “You know those things are five grand? And what’s my old lady gonna do with a fridge that plays music?” Bucky laughs at that, though it’s a little self-deprecating, and Steve’s almost pained with how he relates. Steve is the exact same with his own mother: goes straight for the most expensive of anything, the one that has the most bells and whistles, just to try and make her happy. He joins in with Bucky’s laughter, a tad disparaging itself.

“I hear that the grocery list feature is very handy,” Steve answers a moment later, because there has to be _some_ benefit to the obscene refrigerator he outfitted his mother’s place with. “And the girls love drawing on the touch screen.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bucky says as he picks up some socks, looking skeptically at either the idea of the fridge, the socks, or both.

The initial remark on Steve’s upbringing had seen him reflexively moving to protect himself and his reputation, but with a simple chat Bucky disarmed him. He hasn’t made the fact of Steve’s upbringing something to be ashamed of, but has normalised it like it’s nothing. Maybe to Bucky it isn’t. Maybe Steve has just spent so long surrounding himself by people who _would_ care that he doesn’t know anything different.

Lydia makes her way over to Charlotte, her arms laden with dresses and leggings and tops. She drops them on the floor and they begin to rifle through the stack, picking up the most extravagant of clothes - certainly not the sort designed for hours of active play. Steve heads over to where they are and Bucky follows behind, his hand reaching out to touch all of the clothing they pass. The various shop staff look distressed at the hours of steaming and ironing and folding ruined, just like that. Steve makes a note to leave them a hefty tip.

“Found anything you want to try on?” Steve asks when they arrive, and it seems that the entire floor is full of possibilities. “Should we go to the fitting room?” Steve ensures he speaks loudly enough that they can be overheard, and immediately they’re being swooped upon by eager staff. The clothes are picked up and draped over arms, and Charlotte and Lydia are getting complimented on everything from their hair to their clothes to their teeth.

Steve follows behind the eager shop assistants, and he feels Bucky fall into step behind him. They make it into the fitting room, which is ostentatious, even by Steve’s standards. Each small room has a gold gilt mirror mounted to the wall; the cubicle protected from the outside world by a heavy red curtain. Steve takes a seat on one of the chaise lounges against the wall, watching the assistants lay out the different outfits for each girl, ready to be tried on. Bucky leans against the wall at his side. “Did your Ma get that new refrigerator?” Steve asks, indifferent - a casual enquiry from a friend - once the girls disappear inside to get dressed. They’re going to take a while, that’s for sure.

“Not yet,” Bucky says and, though an admission like that would’ve filled Steve with guilt, Bucky seems to own it. “I’m working on it.” He shrugs.

Steve fishes his wallet out from his pocket, opening it up and pulling out one of many cards. It’s the one with the lowest limit - ten thousand a day - and though he’s sure Bucky isn’t going to run off with it, it won’t hugely damage Steve if he does. “You go buy yourself something nice for your birthday, and order whatever you want on that for your Ma.”

Bucky, instead of taking the proffered card, wraps his fingers gently around Steve’s wrist. The barest touch is enough to draw Steve’s eyes upwards, away from the closed curtains and the giggles coming from within them. “Steve,” Bucky says seriously, eyes narrowed down at him. “You’ve known me barely a _week_. Are you serious?”

Steve knows that. He’s well aware. But he’d also known Peggy for a few hours before inviting her into his home, and then two days before asking her to officially move in. He’s used to shooting first and asking questions later, even if it isn’t the most practical or sensible of strategies. By Steve’s standards, knowing someone a week is a long-term situation. “It’s got a ten thousand dollar limit,” Steve says dismissively, ignoring the way Bucky’s eyes widen marginally at that. “Please. You’ve already made such good progress with the girls. And it’d be rude not to get you a gift, right?”

Bucky’s eyes linger, that burning gaze back. He squeezes Steve’s wrist and then lets go, taking the card gently with one hand and pressing his coy lips to it. Steve can see his smirk around the plastic edges of the card.

The smouldering look Bucky wears inspires a certain boldness in Steve, so he asks, “where’s mine?”

Bucky laughs loudly, poking his tongue out between his teeth. “Maybe later,” Bucky says, turning on his heel and disappearing out the door. “But only if you’re good!” He calls out, no doubt drawing the attention of the rich, elderly women who had been occupying the children's wear section with them.

Steve forces himself to get back to the girls, and not daydream about what trouble Bucky’s getting up to.

—

The rest of the shopping trip is spent - for Steve, at least - watching his girls put on fashion shows down the aisle in front of him and helping them in and out of more complicated pieces of clothing. It takes a _really_ long time, because whenever the to-try pile dries up, the shop assistants go and collect more, varied options for the girls to pick from. Steve watches as they dip in and out of dresses and jeans, leggings and sweaters, and, even if it is starting to get repetitive, he’s enjoying seeing the look of happiness on their faces as they walk out in something they love.

Bucky, surprisingly, returns just as they’re finishing up, a bag over each arm and the card held deftly between two fingers. Steve takes it, careful not to touch Bucky’s skin lest he feel the spark between them again and lose his train of thought. “How did it go?” Bucky asks, looking at the two girls, each with their own assistant holding their purchases behind them.

Steve’s sure the question is for him, given the way Bucky’s eyes are returning to him so often, but the girls both chirp, “good!” anyway.

“Glad to hear it,” Bucky says, stepping forward to inspect their decisions.

Charlotte’s choice is a long-sleeve dress, covered in bright patterns with flowers and bees and stars. Lydia’s option is more appropriate for a party - a white shirt with colourful people printed on it and a matching pair of leggings. Steve also let the two of them pick shoes to go along with their new outfits and, once again, Charlotte opts for style over practicality with pink and red gumboots. Lydia had grabbed the first pair of sneakers she’d seen, a pair of high-tops with a llama print and light-up soles.

Bucky, as he looks, makes noises of serious assessment - hums and thoughtful nods - before finally putting the girls out of their misery and ruffling their hair. “They’re good picks, kiddos. Well done.”

Steve certainly does not feel his heart flutter at the way his girls light up under Bucky’s praise, even if they’ll be screaming at him over something mundane later. “Let’s hope Bucky didn’t spend all of Daddy’s money, then,” he remarks dryly, offering Bucky a knowing glance – both to his face, then to each bag.

Bucky laughs, holding the bags up proudly. “I think we all know Daddy has more than one credit card, don’t we, girls?”

Both girls, with no real concept of money, let alone credit, giggle and chirp, “yes,” in turn.

Steve rolls his eyes good-naturedly before turning and leading the way to the counter. “I hope we at least get a fashion show at home,” Steve smiles, watching as their purchases are folded and carefully wrapped in tissue paper before being slid into a bag.

They read out the total, but the number doesn’t matter to Steve. That’s the thing that’s taken him the longest time to get used to - hearing any amount of money and not scrambling to check his bank account before putting it through. Steve’s wealth doesn’t hold a candle to someone like Tony’s, who eclipses him multiple times over, but he has enough to do this - to treat his girls to whatever they want, without worrying. And to treat Bucky, too, it would seem.

“If you insist,” Bucky says airily, gently keeping both girls in place at the counter despite their best attempts to run off and find something new to play with. They managed - somehow - to avoid the toy department entirely, and Steve would like to keep it that way. Bucky is clearly on the same wavelength as Steve there. “We might need to save some of it for after they’ve gone to bed, though,” Bucky whispers, leaning in just enough so that only Steve can hear him.

—

Steve is convinced that Bucky knew exactly what he was doing in the store, because Steve has been unable to think of anything other than what Bucky might have purchased for the rest of the day. His open invitation to buy himself a gift meant that Bucky was absolutely within his rights to go purchasing whatever it was his heart desired, and Steve would have been fine with that if he didn’t know at least one item in there was inappropriate for children.

As it stands, he is unable to function basically all afternoon.

Steve tries to play with the girls, but apparently is playing wrong - whatever that means - and then Charlotte starts yelling at Lydia and Lydia knocks over the blocks and Bucky ends up dragging both of them to timeout and speaking to them with his serious nanny voice. Steve remains on the living room floor, holding a plastic dinosaur in one hand and a racing car in the other, wondering what just happened. Maybe if he had listened to the rules instead of fantasising about what Bucky bought, he’d be okay.

That incident, of course, marks the end of their playtime. Lydia can’t come back to whatever game they’re playing without sulking, and Charlotte spends so long screaming that she’s kept in the same spot for fifteen minutes before Bucky releases her.

Dinner, thankfully, comes soon enough. It is a much less eventful affair, too - Indian food ordered in - and the four of them squeeze onto the couch to watch Frozen.

For the hundredth time in Steve’s life.

Bucky has never seen the film before, though, and is mesmerised by it all. Steve spends more time watching him than watching the screen, delighting in the way he smiles through the musical numbers and chuckles a little to himself at the jokes the girls are too young to understand. When the end credits finally roll, Bucky wastes no time getting the girls up and herding them to the bathroom.

Which only leaves Steve with more time to think.

What could Bucky _possibly_ have purchased that would be so inappropriate? The only thing that springs to mind is underwear, and Steve wonders why that was something Bucky would want to show him, anyway. Steve doesn’t yet know Bucky well enough to tell whether the flirtatious remarks he makes are sincere, or merely the way he interacts with others, so he can’t tell whether this is an overt come on or simply a joke. He sincerely hopes it is a joke, because if Bucky is serious about this then Steve is going to behave _very_ inappropriately to a man he’s employed despite all his good intentions.

When bedtime rolls around, Steve gets dragged into a dramatic reading of both Thelma The Unicorn _and_ its sequel, despite the girls knowing the words well enough that they recite them without looking. Steve hears the shower running in the bathroom and tries to focus very hard on the plight of the now-famous Thelma rather than Bucky, naked, separated from him by mere drywall.

Finally, placated by promises to play Thelma in the morning (sorry, Bucky), Steve kisses both Charlotte and Lydia on the head, tells them he loves them, and turns out the light.

Steve’s carefully pulling the door closed behind him when he comes face to face with Bucky, who is wearing - presumably the clothes he brought during the day. He gestures with a nod towards the living room, and Steve is helpless, a moth drawn to his flame. With Bucky leading the way Steve can shamelessly admire his ass in his new jeans, which are - both surprisingly and _un_ surprisingly - baby pink.

Leaning against the doorway, Steve watches Bucky do a small walk through the living room, twirling on one heel to face him at the end. Bucky places a hand on his cocked hip, gestures at his full body with the other, and asks, “do you like it?”

The answer is, in every universe, a resounding _yes_. Steve would like Bucky in expensive designer clothes the same as he’d like him in thrift store seconds. He would like him in nothing more than anything, but Steve is capable only of nodding, lest he venture too close to inappropriateness.

“Good,” Bucky says, now looking at himself, smoothing down the shirt. It’s a navy blue so dark it’s almost black and patterned with white stars forming constellations. “I like the shirt.”

“Big fan of stars?” Steve asks, meaning for it to come out jokingly but missing the mark. It is due, perhaps, to the way his voice is kinda strangled. He can’t help it – the jeans are a _very_ good fit, though they leave nothing to the imagination.

Bucky smiles at him, toeing the line between sincere and seductive. “Used to borrow the same book from the school library every week, _Astronomy for Kids_. Taught myself to climb the roof to get a better view - not that Ma was too pleased with that one.” The wistfulness in Bucky’s tone doesn’t do a thing to dampen Steve’s feelings - if anything, it fans the flame. The sentimentality is enough to send Steve back to memories of his childhood, the stupid things he used to do, the way his Ma would ground him for days when he finally dragged himself home.

Perhaps they have more in common than simply living in the same house, pulled together by employment.

“I’ll let you get to bed,” Bucky interrupts Steve’s thoughts, walking - strutting, really - back to pass him, and Steve can tell before it happens that Bucky’s side is going to brush his. He keeps perfectly still, relishing in the contact, the way sparks dance outward from every place their bodies touch.

It’s not until Bucky’s halfway to his room that Steve remembers, and he calls as quietly as he can manage, “what was the other thing you got?”

Bucky turns, regards Steve with a raised eyebrow. “What other thing?”

“The one we had to save until after bedtime,” Steve replies, with a nod to the girls’ closed door between them.

“Oh,” Bucky says, a _silly me_ tone in his voice.

Then he undoes his fly one-handed, casually, as if this is something he does at work all the time. With the zipper down, Bucky’s able to peel the top of his jeans down to reveal first a thick black waistband and then one thigh’s worth of lacy black briefs. “Just these. G’night, Steve.”

As quick as they’re down, they’re back up, and Steve watches Bucky’s pink, covered ass retreat down the hallway.

Steve is not quick to sleep that night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm sorry I haven't replied to all of your comments yet - I've been so busy and exhausted. But I read them all and they make me 🥰🥰

Bucky is partway through a particularly pleasant dream - reliving the moment not two days ago when Steve had brushed past him to get a glass out of the cupboard but, instead of making himself smaller, had merely rubbed the entire back of his body against the front of Bucky’s. His dream is not only a reliving of that, but it is an embellishment, taking all the near-misses and lingering touches that have suddenly become the foundation of their relationship and playing them on loop, over-saturated and with an indication that Bucky will be getting more in this dream than he has since moving into the Rogers household.

He is partway through this dream when, in a move reminiscent of his first morning in the house, he is awoken. It is not the rudest awakening he’s had - Lydia’s knee to his bladder is the most offensive in recent memory - but it’s hardly pleasant. No awakening is, really.

Lydia and Charlotte are both on the bed when Bucky cracks his eyes open, and they’re chanting his name on repeat without requiring breath. Bucky rolls onto his side a little more, carefully positioning his top leg so it’s not too obvious to anyone present that the dream he’d been having was _not_ appropriate for times when two four-year-olds are in the room.

Except they’re now five-year-olds, and Bucky sleepily pieces together what they’re saying between the endless iteration of _BuckyBuckyBucky_.

“It’s our birthday!” One of them manages in between the never-ending stream of his name. Then he thinks he hears the phrase, “get up!” repeated with alarming desperation.

Bucky’s brain, which is still laying over the dining table with Steve on top of it, is taking its time to catch up.

“What?” He asks, slow and sleepy.

“Dad says,” Lydia begins, but Charlotte attempts to talk over her, and so she gets pushed off the edge of the bed with a wail. “ _Dad says_ ,” Lydia tries again, with greater volume and forcefulness, “that we can’t see our presents until you get up!”

Bucky glares at the spot where Lydia once was, because she’s run off as soon as she’s finished speaking, Charlotte hot on her heels and screeching. Bucky’s lovely dream and the resultant physical needs are put on the back burner, because now he has to drag himself out of bed and go sort out the girls before they murder each other before their birthday party. Though it might make the house a more peaceful place to be, it would be such a waste of the money Steve spent on their outfits.

With a pair of sweatpants now on, erection as tucked away as can be without causing physical pain, Bucky makes his way into the kitchen where Steve is busy preventing World War 3 from starting. Lydia is hiding behind his legs, the very picture of innocence even as Bucky catches her with her tongue poked out. Charlotte is yelling and crying and _god_ , could they not do this at any other time? Bucky doesn’t know how they can sense it’s six in the damn morning and then decide to wake up and be annoying, but he really needed at _least_ another thirty minutes.

Without preamble, Bucky steps in and plucks Charlotte straight up off the ground. The noise she was making turns into a high, surprised squeal, and Bucky positions her as one would a toddler on their hip, except for the fact that she’s way too long and heavy to be comfortably held for any period of time.

The shock of it all has Steve and Lydia also looking wordlessly at him, as Charlotte whacks his thigh with her heel. “If anyone screams again, I am taking every birthday present in this house and I am putting it in the trash,” Bucky says tonelessly, sleep still clinging to his words and roughing them around the edges.

Charlotte whines and makes to argue, but Bucky shushes her. Lydia is tugging on Steve’s shirt, as if he’ll come to her rescue. “Am I understood?” Bucky asks, placing Charlotte back on the floor for the sake of his poor legs, which were copping a beating.

“ _Daddy_ ,” Lydia complains, but Steve just steps away from her, his shirt stretched out and clutched tight in her fist.

“Bucky’s right. No more screaming,” Steve says, and both girls immediately start to argue why they were _completely_ justified in trying to kill each other. “When you’re quiet,” Steve adds, when it’s clear that the ‘ _no screaming_ ’ rule really isn’t improving anything, “we will open presents.”

And just like that, as if by some miracle, both Charlotte and Lydia are model children. Their lips are pressed together and they smile up at Steve, eyes flickering between their father and the closed door that leads into the living room.

Steve, for whatever reason, is looking at Bucky. Perhaps for a signal. Perhaps it’s because Bucky is still half asleep, his hair isn’t done, and he’s wearing sweatpants and an old shirt. Bucky raises an eyebrow at him, and Steve looks away quickly and clears his throat. “No running,” Steve warns ahead of time, and if it wasn’t for Bucky stepping forward and placing a firm hand on each girl’s closest shoulder, he would’ve been completely ignored.

The door opens, and Lydia starts but Bucky’s holding tight to her. Charlotte is, by her nature, slightly more subtle in her attempts to escape. Bucky keeps his hold on them long enough to lean down and hiss, “ _walk_ ,” very clearly, before releasing them.

Their walk is full of fast-moving legs and jostling with bony elbows, but their delighted squeals bring a sweet kind of joy to Steve’s face that Bucky is too preoccupied thinking about to realise he’s been left alone in the kitchen.

Bucky hurries to catch up with the family, and though he’s always known it was _them_ and _him_ , the divide has never before been more clear. There Charlotte and Lydia are, surrounded by gifts. A giant pink balloon arch enshrines the piles of presents, two gold helium-inflated _5_ ’s floating in the air above them. Charlotte and Lydia are already tearing into the wrapping paper, but beside each matching pile is a small bike with all the necessary parts: training wheels and pink tassels and white wicker baskets and a bunch of spoke beads shaped like tiny butterflies clattering around. Steve glows simply by being within proximity to their joy - Lydia takes a giant stuffed unicorn and runs around the room with it, laughing excitedly, while Charlotte struggles into an Elsa dress-up. The floor is covered with the sorts of gifts Bucky or his sisters might accumulate in a _lifetime_ : colouring-in books and glitter crayons thrown together in a pile; new dolls and clothes to dress them in; a small pink convertible car pulling a horse float driving into a three-story mansion; a set of Disney picture books with hardcovers and a carry case shaped like a castle; and piles upon piles of clothes and stuffed toys and anything else a child might desire. It’s as if Steve let a bunch of children have his credit card and unsupervised time on the internet.

“Daddy!” they squeal in unified delight as Steve picks them up in turn and forces kisses onto their foreheads, interrupting their play for a moment of affection he’s no doubt entitled to. Bucky stays at a distance, secretly glad he didn’t get them a gift. He’s sure Steve can let him put his name on the card for one of the five _hundred_ presents that are occupying the living room.

From that point, the room itself quickly descends into madness. There’s glittery pink wrapping paper in piles everywhere, toys occupying every possible surface, and two girls who are so beyond reasoning with that Bucky isn’t even going to try. He does stay behind and supervise the mayhem while Steve disappears into the kitchen, surprised - and grateful - when a hot coffee is delivered fresh into his hands.

“Sorry they woke you,” Steve says, but his tone is nothing short of delighted.

Bucky shrugs one shoulder, instead focusing his attention on the coffee. It breathes life into his soul - money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a good coffee maker and some decent beans, and that’s gotta count for something. “It’s fine,” he says, once he’s two mouthfuls in and feeling more like a human being. From across the room, someone has found something that makes noise, and is slamming that button repeatedly like their life depends upon it. Bucky takes another sip.

Steve tries to look a little chagrined, as if he can relate to Bucky, but he clearly can’t help himself. Spoiling the girls, Bucky has noticed, is one of his favourite things to do. Bucky only wishes he was getting spoiled, he thinks, as he stands around in the place he lives rent- and bill-free. It just doesn’t feel as sweet as having free rein on a credit card, that’s all.

“I wanted you to be there for when they got their presents,” Steve says, wistfully, belatedly, and Bucky’s already forgotten that they were having a conversation. He glances up from where he’s been watching Charlotte go to town on a glitter set she had been given. The couch is getting some new additions today. “That’s all.”

Bucky blinks at that, trying to piece together the meaning in his head. Sure, Bucky’s their nanny. He spends more time with them in a regular day than Steve does. But he’s not their mother or father. He’d want to see them open their presents if only to make sure they didn’t kill each other over one getting something better than the other. That’s what he’s getting paid to do, after all, however Bucky can’t deny the warmth that stirs in him getting to see the girls - and Steve - so happy.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Bucky answers, bumping his hip against Steve’s before he goes to try and salvage something from the mess that’s been made.

—

It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that Bucky’s job is to be a nanny to the girls. Especially when Steve’s home, he has very little to actually _do_. Steve always orders breakfast for all of them and usually takes them out places, so all Bucky does is get the girls ready and pack their bags.

Since it’s their birthday, Steve’s lavishing the girls with even _more_ attention than normal, if such a thing is even possible. He orders pancakes up for breakfast and they come covered in fairy floss embedded with edible flowers, sparkling candles poking up through each one.

Bucky got pancakes of his own, albeit without all the cavity-inducing sweetness on top, and he only has to tell Charlotte off once for trying to steal a hunk of cotton candy from the top of Lydia’s plate. It’s as peaceful as breakfast ever gets in their house, possibly because the girls know that the quicker and quieter they are eating breakfast, the sooner they get to go back to all the toys in the living room.

They push their finished plates across the table almost in complete unison. Steve goes to pick them up to put in the dishwasher, but Bucky bats his hands away, staring at the girls until they take their plates over to the sink to rinse off themselves with heavy sighs. Bucky inspects each dish to ensure no scraps of food are left behind (as if the two of them hadn’t licked the damn things clean), before nodding his head and taking both plates to put in the dishwasher.

“Right, off you go,” Bucky announces, and the girls both drag themselves down the hallway to the bathroom, grumbling complaints as they go.

Steve turns and watches, one eyebrow raised in question.

“They have to brush their teeth after breakfast,” Bucky explains, a rule that his mother had implemented during his own childhood and Bucky was now passing on, a kind of unconventional family tradition.

“Oh,” Steve says, and Bucky likes to interpret the noise as pleasant surprise and not veiled annoyance, so he does.

They only brush for approximately twenty seconds, but Bucky lets it slide - it _is_ their birthday, after all, and the point of making them do it themselves is more to build a good habit and less for actual dental hygiene. Bucky watches them every night and sets a timer to make sure it’s done properly at least once a day. Not that they don’t have access to the most expensive dentists money can buy anyway, for if their brushing skills are lacking.

While the girls smile at him for an inspection (as if Bucky is getting close enough to see anything, that’d be gross), Steve’s phone starts to ring, and he waves a hand at Bucky in a gesture that he doesn’t understand. Bucky just concentrates on his job, the girls - unfortunately _not_ Steve - and waves them back into the living room while he tidies away Steve’s and his own dishes.

Steve has a cleaner, so it isn’t actually necessary for Bucky to clean anything, but he feels kinda bad not doing the little things he can do. Wiping down benches, stacking the dishwasher, making sure laundry gets into the hamper that is then left out for the mysterious laundry goblins to run away with - whatever. Bucky still doesn’t understand rich people, but he does his best.

Bucky makes quick work of the kitchen and then returns to the living room, where the situation is, frankly, out of control. Not the girls, per se, who are just playing with as many toys as they can simultaneously. The problem is simply the sheer _amount_ of toys. Bucky doesn’t know where to put everything. He starts by picking up the forgotten gifts, which is mainly the clothes that aren’t Disney Princess costumes, and piles them onto the couch to hang up. The books Bucky grabs next, and makes a small clearing on the lowest shelf of Steve’s bookcase for that, laying picture books in between the thick history tomes Steve has, for some stupid reason.

Charlotte and Lydia settle in to play with their new Lego set, so Bucky repurposes a few containers from the kitchen for craft storage. A lot of the glitter is a lost cause, and now resides in Charlotte’s hair and the very fibres of the couch and carpet, but Bucky saves what he can and packs it away with the other art supplies. It’s slow work, and by the time Bucky is done he hasn’t made a dent in any of the _actual_ toys, just the stuff the girls don’t care about when they have 500 pastel-pink blocks that all fit together somehow.

Steve ducks back in from his bedroom, running a hand through his hair. In the space of fifteen minutes and at least one phone call, he’s gone from looking happy to looking haggard. “So Cole and Rheannon can’t come any more,” Steve begins, which is a statement met by Charlotte with a disappointed whine, and complete ambivalence from Lydia.

“Cole’s my best friend!” Charlotte says loudly, tears welling up in her little eyes. Bucky suspects they’re purely for show.

Lydia snatches the unicorn minifigure from Charlotte’s side of the Lego house. Bucky snatches it from her. “You said Cassidy was your best friend!” Lydia protests loudly.

“I can have _two_ best friends!” Charlotte argues, and Steve holds his hands up placatingly.

“I know, honey, but they’re sick. When they’re better we’ll go back and have another little party, okay?”

It is very much _not_ okay.

Charlotte lays face down on the floor and starts to cry, and Lydia grumbles simply because the attention isn’t all on her, which is unacceptable. Bucky needs the strength of another coffee already. At least his boner has been well and truly killed.

“Now we’ve paid for two extra lots of catering that won’t even get eaten, and this company _always_ overdoes it as is,” Steve bemoans the most first world of all problems, running a hand through his hair again. The messiness of it implies that he’s already done so a few times in the bedroom, when he’d taken the call. “I have to go pick up Grandma, too, and a few things for the party. You don’t know anyone with kids who’d want to come along?” Steve asks, turning his attention to Bucky, who is guarding the unicorn from Lydia’s not-so-subtle liberation attempts.

Bucky can’t help with Steve picking things up for the party - presumably he will be left in charge of preparing the two girls for the day, which is more difficult than navigating around New York in a car even in the most frightful of traffic jams. But he does know two kids who probably aren’t doing anything. “My sister has kids?” Bucky offers.

“Great,” Steve says, toeing into some shoes and attempting to flatten out his ruffled hair. Bucky has to clench his fists not to step in and help him. He knows that if he touches Steve’s hair, he’s not letting go, and that’s hardly something the girls need to see on their birthday. “Let her know the time, I’m gonna go handle,” Steve waves his phone for emphasis, “all of this, and I’ll be back as soon as possible, okay?”

It’s not a question that requires an answer, because Steve’s grabbed his wallet and keys already and is out the door in the next heartbeat.

Which is, of course, the cue for Charlotte to wail louder and Lydia to complain more.

—

Somehow, through a divine miracle probably, Bucky manages the following before Steve’s return home: to invite his sister and her children to the party, and only cop minimal teasing for it; to bathe and dress both girls in their chosen party outfits; and to successfully put their hair in matching braided buns. Sure, Steve’s out for going on three hours, but Bucky’s pretty impressed with that. He’s busy checking they have everything they need when the door opens, and Steve’s return with Sarah is met with ecstatic cries of, “ _Grandma!_ ”

Bucky makes his way quickly into the entry, spurred on by a burning desire to meet Steve’s mother and an even more pressing need to keep the girls’ hair intact for their party.

Sarah Rogers is - well, what Bucky expects. Kinda. She’s a bit younger than Bucky’s own mother by the looks of things, but then a life with only one child will do that to you. Her hair is blonde, like Steve’s, but the silver streaks make it almost shimmer in the mid-morning light. She’s dressed not in the sorts of fancy, rich people clothes Bucky anticipated, but in a more casual button-front dress that brushes against her stocking-clad calves, a navy coat pulled over top.

Bucky watches the woman crouch down, taking her time with the movement as she pulls both her grandchildren in for a hug. “Look at you two,” she cries, squeezing them tightly before holding them at arm's length.

As Bucky stands at a polite distance, he can’t help but preen at the way Sarah runs an admiring finger across the texture of their braids. “My little angels,” Sarah says at last, leaning in to kiss first Charlotte, then Lydia, on the cheek, “you look beautiful. Happy birthday.” From the pocket of the coat she pulls two little jewellery boxes, and she holds them out.

Without prompting, Charlotte and Lydia take the boxes and pop them open. There, nestled inside the expensive silk, is something thin and gold - Bucky can’t quite make it out from where he’s standing. Charlotte is the first to take hers out of the box, and Sarah helps her slide it on over her wrist - Lydia follows suit, and soon the two of them are admiring what must be matching gold bangles.

“Thanks Grandma,” they sing-song, and then, suddenly, it becomes a battle over who can show Grandma what first.

Bucky takes that as his sign to step in, capturing each girl by the elbow and gently guiding them a step back. “If you both speak at the same time, how will Grandma hear anything?” Bucky says, in a voice that is much more veiled threat than it is a friendly suggestion, and that immediately quietens both of them. “Each of you go and grab one thing and come back. Quietly.”

They do as they’re told, though Bucky can hear the beginnings of a whispered debate over who gets what. He lets that one slide, because now he has become the subject of Sarah Rogers’ attention. She traces his braid, too, because both girls had demanded to match with his hairstyle once he’d finished getting ready. “You must be Bucky,” Sarah says with a warm smile, and up close Bucky can see Steve in her eyes, that familiar fire tempered by a good nature.

“The one and only,” Bucky says, offering a hand but being pulled into a surprisingly forceful hug instead.

“Steve talks non-stop about you,” Sarah says, and her eyes sparkle when Steve protests this fact.

“Ma,” Steve intervenes, holding a bouquet of flowers bigger than Bucky’s head, cheeks _perhaps_ a little pink behind the mix of roses. “I don’t talk about Bucky _that_ much.”

“Nonsense,” Sarah says, waving off both her son and Bucky to turn her attention to the two very quiet, very eager girls about to vibrate out of their skin in front of her. “Look at this. I can’t remember the last time I could think in the same room as these two. You said he’s a miracle worker-”

“ _Ma!_ ”

“-and I think you might be right.” Sarah dismisses the adults by crouching down again, her attention completely on the Lego masterpiece Lydia has chosen to show off.

Bucky preens a little more at the sight of Steve, looking ready to argue but holding himself back, cheeks flushed a little more, eyes narrowed. That is, until Steve realises he’s being watched, and then he immediately deflates - though he blushes brighter under Bucky’s scrutiny. “I swear I don’t talk about you that much,” he whispers, though neither his mother nor his children are paying them even the slightest attention.

“I’d be offended if you didn’t,” Bucky counters, easily taking the bouquet from him. “I’ll get these in a vase. Anything else before we leave?”

“I’m just going to get changed and we’re good to go,” Steve says, making for his bedroom before hesitating. “Right, Ma? You need anything?”

Sarah has now shifted her attention to Charlotte, who has pulled a $20 Target Elsa costume over a $2000 Gucci dress, because of _course_ she has. Bucky ignores that and instead disappears into the kitchen, selecting a vase that is no doubt worth more than his entire existence, and gets the giant bouquet established. There’s a card poked in the middle that Bucky pulls out and reads, but it’s just got a generic birthday message and a few names on there he’s never heard. Boring.

By the time Bucky’s finished picking the perfect spot for the flowers, Steve's finished dressing, and it’s really quite an unfortunate time for Steve to be looking like _that_. Bucky’s dressed in the shirt and baby pink jeans Steve(’s card) bought him, the jeans loose enough for if he needs to go climbing through play equipment to wrangle children. Steve, on the other hand.

_Steve_.

He’s wearing camel-coloured trousers and a white shirt, which is very _typical dad_ of him. But then there’s a cardigan over the top, and Bucky’s about to lose his _fucking_ mind because Steve looks like a ridiculous kind of dad-cross-librarian. He looks like he’ll turn this car around and go home if they don’t stop yelling, but also like the guy who’s juggling three kids in Whole Foods trying to find whatever flax meal is supposed to be.

Bucky has never before in his life looked at a man so _fucking_ regular and wanted to jump his bones so badly. Bucky wants to feel the arms that are barely, _barely_ contained by that stupid cardigan, he wants Steve to throw him over his desk and knock his stupid paperweight to the floor. Bucky wants to put a hand to his neatly brushed-back hair and grab it tight and use it to steady himself while he rides Steve into next week. He wants the beard burn around his thighs and ass to remind him that he conquered that territory, all the while Steve is unable to meet his eyes across the dining table at breakfast the next morning.

“Buck?” Steve asks, and Bucky immediately remembers that it is not just him alone with his fantasies here. No, there is Steve - the object of his fantasy - as well as his two children and his _mother_.

Bucky clears his throat and hopes his face isn’t bright red because he’s not _like_ this. Bucky likes men who can pay for their time with him, who treat him well and then leave him alone. He should not be attracted to Steve just because he lives with the man now. That should have all fizzled out long ago with the realisation that Steve is just an obscenely rich _dad_. A _DILF_ , sure, but a dad nonetheless.

“Ready to go?” Bucky asks in a voice that is a fraction too high. He pointedly ignores Steve’s look, and his expectation that Sarah might be a safer place to put his eyes is ruined when she gives him a knowing smirk.

“Girls!” Bucky announces somewhat desperately, because if he can’t have control over the fact that he’s wanting to sleep with a man in a _fucking_ cardigan, at least he will control two newly minted five-year-olds into getting to their birthday party on time.


	6. Chapter 6

Playgarden meets all of Bucky’s expectations.

It is a venue that he knows would ordinarily be full to the brim with screaming children, what with its multiple areas of brightly coloured equipment. One space seems suited to gymnastics, with large, soft shapes, hoops hanging from the ceiling, and trampolines that rest in between deep pits of foam padding. Another section appears to be sports-oriented, with basketball hoops and soft ( _hopefully_ soft) plastic bats and balls of every size and colour. Then there is finally the indoor climbing frame, which has a multitude of different ladders leading up, up, and up. It looks to Bucky like the perfect place for a child to get stuck and cry for help. To aid them in escaping adult-free, there are also a range of slides: some are enclosed in hard plastic, others are wide and squishy.

Bucky can hear the ghosts of parties past, the screams of children that hadn’t gotten the one toy they _really_ , _really_ wanted. It sends a shudder down his spine.

Today, though - or right now, rather - it is silent. Lydia and Charlotte are staring around the place in open-mouthed awe, because - on top of the usual bright colours and engaging murals - there are balloons _everywhere_. They fit within a strict colour family, and that is _pink_. Someone somewhere had at least a modicum of taste (and it’s obviously not cardigan-wearing Steve), because they’ve broken up the sickly-sweet cotton-candy display with a few balloons in white and gold. Nowhere near enough to fight off the migraine Bucky feels building at the monochrome display, but it’s better than nothing.

Their host for the day, a woman in full princess attire, leads them into the party room. She chatters away to the girls as she goes, asking them questions in a put-upon accent, all high and airy and long, regal-sounding words that neither Charlotte nor Lydia probably even know the meaning of. Their lack of understanding does little to dampen their spirits.

Inside the party room, it is almost impossible to move. More balloons fill the space, the helium ensuring they’re at the perfect height to hit an average-sized adult square in the face. Steve’s head pokes above the crowd - Bucky and Sarah are left to awkwardly bat their way through.

When they make it to the eating area - a space that is thankfully balloon-free - Bucky stares at the place settings for each child. Instead of the paper plates of old, emblazoned with classic cartoon characters, they have a multiple course setting. Bucky taps the corner of one plate. It’s ceramic. To its side rests a full ensemble of cutlery, plated in gold.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Bucky breathes unthinkingly. When he looks up to see if his reaction has been noticed, he realises he has been left behind.

For two miniature thrones.

_Miniature thrones_.

Bucky has witnessed many of Steve’s shows of exorbitant wealth. He was there when Steve purchased _thousand dollar clothes_ for his children. (He also got free rein with the credit card, and trusting Bucky with a lot of money is a pretty outrageous thing to do). But this - _this_ takes the cake. Bucky can only imagine the cost behind renting out an entire children’s venue on a Saturday, let alone one in Tribeca, and then adding on to that a fully catered lunch, enough balloons to fill a stadium, and a poor, overdressed woman who is now placing tiny tiaras upon two very spoilt girls’ tiny heads.

“Bucky!” Steve says, snapping Bucky from his inner monologue, which is presently alternating between calculating the costs of the party and emphatically thinking _what the fuck?_ on loop. “Do you mind getting some photos?” Steve asks, holding out his phone - undoubtedly an unreleased model from Stark, worth a month’s rent on Steve’s fancy-ass penthouse. Bucky’s momentarily frozen, surprised that Steve didn’t hire a photographer. He almost voices that wry thought, but again Steve undoes him with that painfully sincere smile of his.

So Bucky, the best nanny of all time, leans across the table and crouches down and pulls balloons in to frame just to get an assortment of images that will make two little princesses very happy.

That is, of course, before the first of many small children arrive, and all hell breaks loose.

—

To be fair, the _many small children arriving_ part of the day might be Bucky’s favourite.

On one hand, his hearing is now permanently damaged (as if Charlotte hadn’t already seen to that). On the other, he is no longer having to follow the girls around and entertain them, because they’re running wild with their friends.

Bucky and the other adults stand in a loosely formed semi-circle, partially supervising their children, partially angling in to hear the latest gossip. Steve, who is an amazing host, has introduced Bucky to everyone. Bucky promptly forgot most of their names, except for Tony Stark. Maybe that’s because he already knew Tony Stark (who didn’t?), but Bucky has a feeling that’s more to do with the way the man is trying to edge him into a private part of the room for a conversation Bucky already knows he doesn’t want to have.

Out of desperation, Bucky has been texting Rebecca repeatedly since the party began. Apparently getting two children ready for an event of this calibre with three hours notice is not enough. Bucky has tried arguing that anything they show up in will be fine, even as he knows that’s not true. With the exception of Sarah Rogers, there is not a single woman in the room who doesn’t have on a full face of make-up and high heels at a minimum. Every child is in an assortment of designer clothes, branded in one way or another. Even Bucky had put on his finest clothes, bought courtesy of Steve’s generosity. Rebecca will be a sight to behold, a commoner among the upper echelons of New York society.

He is trying to lie to Rebecca via text, attempting to capture a photo of a boy in sweatpants in such a way that the Givenchy logo isn’t visible. _Look_ , Bucky writes, _they’re just like us regular people_.

He is _trying_ to do this, but is unfortunately distracted when Tony Stark of all people says, “Bucky, huh?”

Bucky glances up from his phone, and - in a show of pure petulance - finishes his text message before gracing Stark with a response. “The one and only.”

“Funny,” Tony says, holding a glass of something that is definitely not ordinarily served at a child’s birthday party, “that’s what your website said, too.”

Bucky’s answer comes only in the form of a strained hum. He’s been kind of avoiding this - or hoping Tony had forgotten about it, at any rate. The reason he had met Steve and gotten into the nicest job of his life was because of Tony’s request. So Bucky didn’t sleep with Steve, big deal. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to. The problem, Bucky figures, is that Tony paid a very handsome sum for him to do said sleeping-with, and Bucky had neglected to refund him when the deal didn’t go through.

He could, if he really wanted to, get into the technicalities of his contract. The wording was very specific for exactly this reason (okay, not _this_ reason, because this was the first time anybody had ever bought his time for a friend, but so that people couldn’t demand refunds willy-nilly). It was also very specific because buying and selling sex were class B misdemeanours and Bucky liked not going to jail a whole lot. Bucky offered his services of companionship, and that was it. Sure, if something happened during that period of paid companionship that was arranged through a website with his very tasteful nudes available for viewing, then that was coincidence and chemistry. Totally not planned.

“You know, when I set this up, I didn’t expect you to become his boyfriend,” Tony says thoughtfully, interrupting Bucky’s plotting to get out of this without Stark paid attorneys knocking on his door. _Steve’s_ door. Fuck.

“I’m not his boyfriend,” Bucky answers - bitterly? No. Matter-of-factly. “I’m their nanny.” He points to the girls who are currently throwing ball pit balls at a group of boys with force. Good for them.

“So you’re his fuckbuddy, then?”

“ _No_ ,” Bucky hisses, because two small children are walking past and he really doesn’t need them attributing their knowledge of the word fuckbuddy to him. Stark can cop that one.

Tony stops and regards him with a look that ignores the presence of skin and flesh and bone, instead staring into the deepest recesses of his soul. Bucky raises an eyebrow in return, but it’s all false bravado and he thinks Tony knows that. “You haven’t even slept with him,” Tony says, accusatory. “When he said he hadn’t slept with you I thought it was just Steve being Steve, keeping up the whole noble act. But you really haven’t, have you?”

“I’m _just_ their nanny,” Bucky says, and he tries extremely hard not to sound wistful. Steve’s across the room from him, and it’s warm enough in the building that he’s removed that stupid cardigan. Bucky has had too many fantasies about those arms that he knows he shouldn’t stare, but he’s helpless. They draw him in.

As if sensing the focus on him, Steve turns around to look at them both. He brightens when he sees Bucky, but then a frown overtakes his features, and he gestures between Tony’s back and Bucky. Steve holds a thumbs up in question, then turns it to a thumbs down. Bucky smiles and gives him a small thumbs up in return, just as Tony figures out the wordless conversation going on behind his back.

“You two are _impossible_ ,” Tony says with a long-suffering sigh of a man who has seen this enough times to be done with it. Bucky is intrigued by the back story there, and if he weren’t being interrogated he’d ask about it. “Listen, _Bucky_ , I paid a hefty sum for my boy Steve to have a wild night, and it has not happened yet. So, unless you would like me to come and collect my refund - with additional interest - I suggest you figure this out.”

As if Bucky, the _sex worker_ , doesn’t know what he means, Tony makes an assortment of lewd gestures with his hands. Bucky knows most of them, but some of them stump even him. At one point Pepper, whose name Bucky also didn’t forget, comes past. She hisses, “ _Tony_ ,” at him and snatches the drink from his hand. Then she takes a moment to politely ask Bucky how he’s doing, before wishing him well and disappearing back to her previous conversation group.

“Steve’s not going to sleep with his nanny,” Bucky explains, stepping back to avoid being taken out by two running children who aren’t watching where they’re going. One of them skids to a stop and returns to them, wrapping her arms around Tony’s legs and burying her head against his side.

“Nonsense,” Tony says, ruffling the girl’s hair. “Morgan and I love having sleepovers with Charlie and Lyds, don’t we, honey?” The way his entire body language and speech pattern changes due to the presence of his daughter is startling. There’s the man miming intercourse with his fingers tangled together in a very concerning way, then there’s the one inviting over Steve’s five-year-old children for a sleepover like he’s a regular dad.

“Are they coming over tonight?” Morgan asks, and, now that he’s looking, he can spot Pepper in her sweet smile. He can’t quite figure out how a woman like Pepper would ever sleep with a man like Tony, but he must have at least one redeeming trait somewhere.

“Not tonight. But any time Bucky and Steve need some time to hang out and do grown-up stuff, they can.” Tony’s explanation is met with a sage nod, before Morgan returns to running around after two of the other party guests. “Just say the word, and the house is yours.”

Bucky smiles very sweetly, but his answer is cut off by a child launching themselves at his own legs. And then another. The heights don’t equate with Charlotte and Lydia - and neither does the voice that cries, “Uncle Buck!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bucky says in dismissal of Tony, before manoeuvring himself to wrap his niece and nephew in a tight hug.

Being with them is so very different from being with Charlotte and Lydia, it’s almost immediately detectable. There’s no waiting in anticipation for the coming demands, it’s being hugged without ulterior motives. Bucky presses an embarrassing kiss to Flynn’s forehead first, which he wipes away with a groan in true seven-year-old boy fashion. Piper takes the kiss with a pleased giggle, and Bucky tugs on her ponytail. He sees Steve over her head, watching them with the kind of fondness he looks at his girls. Bucky looks back down at the kids - further down, even, taking in their outfits for the day. “Look at you two, all dressed up.” Bucky brushes out a crease in Flynn’s button-up, as if it’s not going to be a crumpled mess by the time he’s done. “Go and have fun.”  
  


They don’t wait for any further instructions, darting off into the wonderland of indoor play equipment. When Bucky rises from his crouch, Becca is there, taking him into her arms despite being shorter than him. “Hey you,” Bucky says, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Hey yourself,” Becca answers, stepping back to look him over. “You’re looking fancy.” She says, pulling at one of many decorative zippers on his pants.

“Thank you,” Bucky says, preening under the positive attention. Especially after the conversation with Tony, this is exactly what he needed. Some praise. “Steve gave me his card, told me to get whatever I wanted. You know that new fridge Ma got?”

Becca’s glance is scrutinising, even as she answers, “yes,” as though suspecting that she might be party to a crime if she listens to the rest of Bucky’s words.

“I got that, too. He just gave me the card and sent me on my way.” At Becca’s doubtful look, Bucky doubles down. “I’m _serious_. More money than sense, I think. You know how rich people get sometimes. They’re either wildly generous or greedy assholes. Steve’s definitely the former.”

Becca pauses, looking for something in his face. Whatever she finds leaves her looking a bit smug. “So, are you going to introduce me to your _boyfriend_?”

Bucky sighs, deflating. Can’t a guy brag without people assuming he’s also getting that dick? It’s really upsetting to be reminded of the lack of action going on between them. “He’s not my _boyfriend_. He’s my boss.”

“Sure he is,” Becca says, smirking as she looks at the extremely well-dressed adults surrounding them.

“Becs, don’t you think I would have told you if I was hitting that?” Bucky gestures with one hand to - all of Steve. The whole dorky dad, unbearably sexy package.

She considers his proposal with a hum, but isn’t able to answer before Steve once again senses eyes on him. This time there’s no check-in gesture - Steve excuses himself mid-conversation to cross to them, offering a hand immediately out to Becca. “You must be Bucky’s sister?” He frames it as a question, when he already knows the answer.

Bucky and his sisters have what you could look at as either a blessing (adult Bucky), or a curse (Bucky throughout school), and that is that they all look related. They have a very distinct collection of features, arranged in an artful way and packaged up with a _Barnes_ label on the front. It’s in the shape of their nostrils and the colour of their eyes; the sound of their laughter and the natural arch of their eyebrows.

“That’s me,” Rebecca says, shaking Steve’s hand firmly. “Rebecca. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Steve. Thank you for making the time to come today - I didn’t want all that food to go to waste.”

Becca laughs. “You have nothing to worry about with my two on the job. They’ll polish off what the other kids don’t.” Bucky knows that to be true. Becca had always had a huge appetite - she’d stolen from Bucky’s plate nearly every night growing up, and her kids both inherited that gene. She was never particularly subtle, but when Bucky was feeling generous he’d let her get away with it.

“You should point them out to me. I assume they didn’t waste any time,” Steve says, and he turns so one arm hovers behind Becca, guiding her towards the play equipment.

Separating Bucky from his sister, and effectively throwing him back to the wolves.

Bucky wants to say something, but Steve tosses him a sly smirk over his shoulder, and Bucky’s speechless for an embarrassing length of time. He’s silently stewing, watching Steve and Becca chat away like old friends - laughing and making elaborate hand gestures. By now, Bucky thinks ruefully, Steve probably knows every mortifying childhood story about him.

He _knew_ he’d made a mistake inviting Becca.

“I know he tries to act like it’s nothing,” Sarah Rogers says at Bucky’s left, and he definitely _doesn’t_ jump. He’s gotten so used to the luxury of loud children and being able to echo-locate them within a five mile radius that regular adults are starting to take him by surprise. “But he really does talk about you a lot. It’s almost annoying.”

Bucky turns to Sarah, taking her in again without the manic rush of Steve’s home prior to departure. She really is magnificent - it’s something in the way she carries herself, a certain knowing glint in her eye. Bucky looks at Sarah and thinks she might be able to deduce all his deepest secrets, just from a glance. It’s reminiscent of Tony’s look from earlier, though Bucky doesn’t have the sinking feeling that Sarah wants to unearth aforementioned deepest secrets and then tell them to the whole world. “I hope he isn’t boring you,” Bucky says, taken off-guard by the conversation topic.

“I enjoy listening to people talk about the things that inspire them,” Sarah answers, mysterious but kind. Bucky forces himself not to read too much into it, despite the blatancy of the statement. “Speaking of which, what are your things?”

“My things?” Bucky stalls.

“The things that inspire you. Drive you. Get you out of bed in the morning.”

“Usually forty pounds of child. Sometimes eighty,” Bucky answers, and again, it’s a diversion. Sarah knows that - Bucky knows she knows, it’s obvious.

“You know what I meant,” Sarah says, shaking her head with a small smile. “And I’m still waiting.”

Bucky’s drawing a blank, though, and it’s likely not going to go down well if he says the first thing that comes to his mind - namely, what he’s going to buy the next time he goes out with Steve’s card and the girls.

Thankfully, though, some kind of signal goes out to the children and they flock out of the playground in droves. Bucky imagines it like a zombie hoard - nothing, and then there’s small bodies screaming, clambering over each other, hands outstretched and desperate for food.

Sarah smiles at him as she departs, following the children into the cramped party room. Bucky gets the feeling he’s not off the hook, but he’ll take whatever he can get.

—-

Like mice behind the Pied Piper, their princess host leads the children into the confined space of the party room. They fight over chairs, each child wanting to sit closest to Charlotte and Lydia just for a chance to lay eyes upon their thrones.

Well, every child except for those related to Bucky.

Flynn and Piper pick the seats closest to the door because the food there is uncontested territory. They’re already tearing through what’s presented on their plates while other children are still jostling one another. It’s a first course of sushi, but they’ve dyed the rice every colour of the rainbow and arranged them in a beautiful curve on the plate. A small dipping bowl of soy sauce sits in the middle, beside some wasabi and pickled ginger. Gold chopsticks are folded neatly across the bottom of the plate. If not for the coloured rice, it would look like a spread from an exclusive Japanese restaurant.

Flynn and Piper, who are very much normal children, start shoving the sushi into their mouths with their fingers. Somehow, rich people upbringing must involve a class on chopsticks, because the majority of the children in the room are dipping their sushi into their desired sauce with a level of dexterity not even Bucky possesses.

Becca leans against his side, whispering, “what the _fuck_?” loudly enough that they earn themselves a bemused look from a nearby man in a three-piece suit.

“This is what Steve’s like,” Bucky says, in feeble explanation.

“Yeah, I noticed _that_ ,” Becca says, conspiratorially, and no amount of Bucky nudging her - verbally or physically - will get her to open up about their conversation earlier.

Instead the pair of them watch the children finish their first course. It doesn’t take long for the plates to be cleared away, and a second is presented. This is a series of miniature sliders with fries served in a small pyramid. The decorum in the room disappears slowly, and then all at once. Sauce from burgers winds up dripped on couture dresses. Salty fingers are smeared on faces. The children start giggling and talking together, instead of sitting quietly and putting all their energy into managing chopsticks.

It brings some peace to Bucky, seeing that. It’s the same feeling he has when Lydia or Charlotte are just playing and having fun, or crying because they’ve been disciplined, or scowling as Bucky forces them to brush their teeth. It’s _normal_. They’re children. They’re not miniature adults, or fashion models. They’re tiny humans that need firm guidance and love and to throw fries at each other across the table.

As the children loosen up, so too do the grown-ups. Plates of what the children have are carried around and offered to the adults, who eat the sushi and burgers with slightly more grace than the children. Some of Steve’s friends pop by to chat to Bucky and Becca, commenting on everything from their clear family resemblance to what they do for work to what they think of the weather. Bucky participates in the conversations as fully as he can, but there’s always something drawing his attention away, and that something is Steve. Bucky can’t help it. He’s beyond beaming - he’s alternating between doting over the girls (even as they push him away with their grubby hands) and taking photographs of them, capturing candid images of every moment of the lunch.

When all the children in attendance have made a suitable mess of their lunch, the plates are cleared away and some of the balloons removed from the room to leave an empty space at the end of the table. There, the princess reappears, along with some poor staff members who obviously pulled the shortest straws. One is dressed up as a prince, the other as an evil old witch. All the adults in the room shuffle to the back as the children get a full stage show, which is a very obvious rip-off of a Disney film. There’s not a single complaint from the audience, though, as the children are likely post-food sleepy and would ordinarily be propped up in front of an iPad or 80-inch television to doze.

The show culminates in a very distanced kiss between the male and female lead, because of _course_ it does, and then the princess rushes off to collect what is either the birthday cake or a scale model of a real life castle, Bucky can’t be sure. The candles carefully decorating the parapets mostly give it away though, as does the princess slowly starting up a group rendition of _Happy Birthday_. Bucky watches the way the girls stare in awe at the cake put before them, placed equidistant from both of them, and he can’t help the way his own heart jumps at the sight. For all the girls are difficult and demanding, they’re also strangely sweet in their own ways. He knows if he had the means to, he would’ve put on parties like these for all his sisters. They deserve the world - and he knows that Steve feels that for Charlotte and Lydia, too.

The song ends with an uproarious cheer, and the girls kneel on their thrones to blow out the multitude of candles they have. Camera phones record the sight from every angle, allowing Steve to be in the moment, rather than recording it. Bucky watches him surreptitiously wipe some tears away, and wants so badly to be up there, beside Steve, giving him a hug, and -

Fuck.

Instead of doing that, Bucky steps up to assist the poor princess with making the two _little_ princesses wait their turn, holding back sneaky hands from grabbing fistfuls of icing and fondant critters. He doles out plates of cake to the birthday girls first, secretly delighting in the way they forego the tiny gold fork in favour of using their fingers, before passing them around the room with assistance from the staff.

The room gets louder and louder as the children all ingest more sugar than they probably need. And then, slowly, they start to filter out - some returning to the play area to continue their rampage, others being dragged reluctantly away by parents for other engagements. Charlotte finishes her cake first and runs off to play, with Bucky’s niece and nephew in tow. Bucky follows her out with Becca and watches the way Flynn lifts both Charlotte and Piper up in turn to help them reach the flying fox. They squeal as they get pushed around, letting go of the bar just as they’re above the large foam pit. It consumes them whole until they emerge from its depths, tears of laughter filling their eyes - and then they’re out, demanding _again! again! again!_

Bucky gets caught up in the moment. It’s been a day for this, he thinks, the little fantasies. He imagines this moment, but not borne from the need to fill two last-minute seats. He imagines that Becca and Flynn and Piper were invited to begin with, that their friendships with Charlotte and Lydia grew naturally. Cousins, though not by blood, or something approximating that. Flynn, the protective big brother to the girls that Bucky had always been. It would likely ease some of Steve’s tension, knowing there was another person out there to care for his two little girls.

Does Steve think of Bucky like that, too? Does he know the lengths to which Bucky would go to keep them safe?

“Bucky,” Steve’s voice says, too close, and Bucky can almost imagine that it’s part of the fantasy, except Steve’s hand is on his lower back - _is_ it part of his fantasy? - and then it’s gone. “Can you give me a hand packing the presents into the car?”

Bucky turns slowly and nods, spotting Lydia tucked up against Steve’s side, sleepy and sulky. “Yeah, sure,” he says, taking the keys Steve offers him and proceeding to the overflowing gift table.

Bucky may be the sort of person to try and carry all the groceries in one go, but he’s not taking any chances today. He doesn’t know the contents of the elaborately wrapped gifts. They could be fragile, or worth more than his entire existence, or both at once. It takes several trips (and one of the gifts starts to neigh when he jostles it) but finally the entire back of the SUV is filled to the brim.

When he returns, the crowd has thinned out even more. Becca has Flynn and Piper by her side, and is chatting to Steve and Sarah. The three adults all turn to look when he approaches, and Bucky knows Becca has been embarrassing him by the mischievous look on her face. It was the same one she’d flash at him behind Ma’s back when she blamed him for eating the last slice of cake and he copped the scolding for it.

Instead of addressing that, Bucky latches onto Charlotte, who has gone the way of her sister - yawning and scowling behind Steve. He gently coaxes her out, running a hand over her ruined braids. “Seems like it’s about that time, huh?” Bucky breaks the silence, which begins the process of goodbyes in earnest.

Steve is a perfect gentleman, giving Becca a hug and talking about how they must do this again, while Sarah presses kisses to the tops of Flynn and Piper’s begrudging heads as if she’s known them a lifetime. Bucky draws his sister and her kids into a group hug, because the moment is getting to be much too sweet for his liking. That, and he suspects Becca will say something embarrassing in his ear if he gets her alone.

Bucky watches them leave, and the remaining families come past to give Steve firm, masculine handshakes, or kisses on the cheek, telling him what a _lovely_ day it was and how _beautiful_ the girls are and all the usual nonsense. Bucky smiles politely and follows the lead of whoever he’s farewelling - sometimes he is completely ignored, while those he struck up conversations with stop to offer him the same handshake or cheek-kiss as if he’s more than just the nanny.

Tony and Pepper are the last to leave, and Bucky had been secretly hoping they disappeared when he was playing car Tetris with a bunch of presents.

The only thing that redeems Tony in Bucky’s eyes is that he takes Steve’s offered hand and then drags him into a hug anyway. He’s not sure why, but he gets the feeling that Steve needs more physical affection than he lets on. And this is a proper hug, too, not the delicate upper-class imitation of one.

Pepper is much more dignified about it, but is also on heels that put her at eye-level with Steve and so can’t risk any rough play. Morgan leaps into Steve’s arms and giggles as she’s swung in a full circle. Charlotte and Lydia have both been sleepily farewelling people from behind Steve and Bucky, but they make the effort to hug Morgan and chatter away to her about something. Clearly, the families are close.

Which means if Bucky fucks this up, he’s… not sure of how badly it could end.

Tony leans in and pats him on the upper arm. “I believe in you, Bucko,” he says, which is perhaps meant to be encouraging but merely adds to the sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Just what I always wanted,” Bucky answers, his smile and tone equally strained.

With a delighted laugh, Tony turns and walks away, leaving Pepper to say the rest of her goodbyes quickly. Morgan darts after her dad, taking his hand and swinging it and already yammering at him.

If anything can make Bucky feel just a little better, it’s the fact that Tony has to go home with a kid who’s on a sugar high. He is, perhaps, just a bit petty.

—

By the time they detour to drop Sarah off in a well-kept building in a well-kept neighbourhood, both girls are sound asleep in their booster seats. Steve walks his mother inside, and Bucky turns to watch the two sleeping beauties. Charlotte has a string of drool hanging from her mouth, and Lydia’s head has fallen forward. It’s too precious, really, and Bucky snaps a photo, just to have a record of one of the rare moments of silence.

Said silence lasts all the way home, and Bucky and Steve have to take one child each and lug them upstairs. Steve lifts Charlotte as if she weighs nothing, whereas Bucky - who is not some sculpted bodybuilder type like Steve, not by any stretch of the imagination - struggles a little with Lydia. Bucky has carried them, but when they’re asleep they’re simply dead weight, and it’s much harder to work with.

Naturally, the pair of them wake up as they’re almost in their bedrooms, and then it’s the end of the world.

Steve leaves Bucky to bathe the girls while he takes on the task of unloading the gifts from the car. Bucky manages to get them both clean through some miracle, though he ends up with a ringing in his ears and bathwater all over his clothes. He helps them both into their pyjamas, then dumps them on the couch with Frozen playing. Bucky, now damp and cranky, has to find Steve, who is - in Bucky’s room, of all places.

Along with every gift from the day.

Bucky stares at them, then at Steve, who holds his hands up defensively. “I know I should’ve asked first,” he starts, “but I figured if the girls saw these, they’d get all hyped up again. Do you mind?”

Now, Bucky - who is living rent-free in Steve’s home - doesn’t really have a leg to stand on here. This is Steve’s room more than Bucky’s, at the end of the day. And he gets it, he does - anything to maintain the peace they’re experiencing is good enough for him. The fact that Steve even asked him if it was okay means a lot as it is.

“It’s fine,” Bucky says, which hopefully doesn’t come out as cranky as he feels, snatching dry clothes from the closet. “But can you watch them? I need to shower.” He makes an expansive gesture towards his front, which is soaked.

Steve bursts out laughing and ruins all the hard work he just did, Bucky’s scowl returning. “Sorry - it’s not funny, sorry, I’ll go,” he awkwardly gestures to the door and darts out of it, leaving Bucky alone. At least he can take a hint.

Bucky knows he doesn’t have to, but he takes an extra long shower, just because he can. He washes his hair with the same shampoo and conditioner the girls have, because it’s expensive and smells good and actually leaves his hair feeling much nicer than what he used to buy. Somehow, kids get the best stuff. Bucky also takes his time just enjoying the warmth and silence, any screaming unable to penetrate beyond the solid walls of the bathroom and the sound of water on tile.

When he finally leaves the beautiful, steamy confines of the shower cubicle, it’s still quiet. Bucky moisturises and towel-dries his hair, leaving it to dampen the shoulders of his sweatshirt when he dresses.

Bucky emerges tentatively from the bathroom, because quiet can only mean bad things when the Rogers’ girls are involved, but a peek into their bedroom reveals them both sound asleep. By 5pm. It’s a miracle.

He finds Steve in the kitchen, hunched over something on the counter, hair hanging over his face.

“You got them off to bed easy?” Bucky asks quietly, shutting the door separating the kitchen from the hallway, hoping to keep any sounds from travelling. Despite being practically deaf when it comes to listening to instructions and rules, Charlotte and Lydia are very good listeners at night when they’re supposed to be asleep.

“They fell asleep within the first five minutes of the movie,” Steve says, turning and smiling at Bucky.

Bucky smiles back. “Lucky us.”

“Lucky indeed,” Steve agrees, turning back to whatever it is he’s messing with. Bucky is a nosey person by nature, but he’s more intrigued by the way Steve’s arms look when he puts all that weight on them. “Tomorrow’s your birthday, isn’t it?” Steve asks, picking up the small sliver of a thing - a note, maybe? - and sliding it into his back pocket. Bucky watches the movement with some interest.

“Sure is,” Bucky answers, his eyes lingering a little on Steve’s back pocket, and the ass beneath it, of course.

“Well, it’s not often there’d be a quiet night like this. Did you have any plans to celebrate? Go out somewhere?”

Bucky shakes his head. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him - he’d been so busy with work that his own plans just fell by the wayside. Besides, after the day he’s had, hitting the club isn’t exactly high on his to-do list. He suspects he’ll go the way of the girls soon enough, falling asleep on the couch. “I’ll have birthday dinner tomorrow,” Bucky says, because that’s a non-negotiable in their family. Winnie would sooner die than let one of her children go their birthday without visiting her and having a home-cooked meal. “Otherwise, nothing.”

“What do you want for dinner tonight, then? My treat,” Steve says generously, as if everything Bucky eats isn’t already _his treat_ by default.

Bucky hums in thought, brushing damp hair back from his face - though it persists in escaping the spot behind his ear and pestering him. “Italian?” Bucky eventually decides upon, his stomach eager for a hearty meal after snacking on party fare and birthday cake. “I’d kill for a big bowl of pasta.”

“Consider it done,” Steve says, pulling out his phone instead of talking directly to Jarvis as he typically does. “Feel free to turn off Frozen, by the way. Unless you’re really interested in watching it again.”

Bucky shudders as he moves through into the living room, grabbing the remote and cutting Olaf off halfway through his song. There’s not a whole lot that Bucky wants to watch - he’s never been a big TV watcher anyway - but he settles on a documentary about some serial killer or another. “I hope you don’t have a weak stomach,” Bucky remarks, just loudly enough to carry into the kitchen but not so loud as to awaken the tiny monsters sleeping beyond there.

“As long as there’s no one being cut open on the screen, I’ll survive,” Steve remarks, appearing in the doorway with two bottles in hand. “Are you a red or a white person? Or none at all?”

It is a stupid question, Bucky thinks, but he also thinks that it’s sweet of Steve to ask. “I’m an _all of the above_ kinda guy,” Bucky says, a metaphor in more ways than one, leaning over the back of the couch. “What do you prefer?”

“White,” Steve says, disappearing long enough to replace the red wine and collect two glasses. “But I’d suffer through the red if it was your birthday wish.”

“Aww,” Bucky says, fake sweet, nudging Steve with his foot when he drops onto the couch. “You’d do that? For me?”

“Of course I would, Bucky,” Steve says, deeply serious, as he pours each glass. He hands Bucky his, before holding up his own. “Cheers?”

Bucky leans in and taps the very expensive glassware together. “Cheers,” he says, taking a celebratory sip.

“To another year older,” Steve says, raising the glass to his lips with a smirk.

“Not _yet_ I’m not.”

“Close enough.”

Bucky huffs and nudges Steve again with his foot, but then turns his attention to the television, to the humble beginnings of the serial killer whose name he doesn’t even know. Somehow, through no fault of Bucky’s own, his foot remains there, weaselling itself under Steve’s thigh for warmth. If his other follows, seeking out the toastiness of Steve’s body, who could blame it?

In fact, the only thing to blame is the sound of someone knocking at the door when their food gets delivered. Bucky’s been enraptured by the show, and doesn’t notice until Steve stands up to collect their order, leaving him cold and bereft.

They exchange pleasantries at the door, and Bucky watches a hefty fold of bills head the delivery driver’s way as a tip. There’s nothing like a man who tips well as far as Bucky’s concerned. He’s fucked some rich guys - some of which are _still_ emailing him, despite the message on his website declaring him on a hiatus - and they tipped like shit. It was an immediate turn off. Bucky got good faking it for guys who wouldn’t fork out. It was like the opposite of foreplay - Bucky had never felt _less_ turned on than seeing a five percent tip go to a server who had to indulge their rich whims all evening. He charged enough to cover their lack of tipping, but it was still a let down. Bucky knows Steve’s a good person based purely on the way the driver’s face lights up when he takes the cash. He also knows it makes Steve at least ten times hotter to him than before, which is a number he can’t count high enough to reach, but he knows it exists just because of Steve.

The fact that Steve also serves the meals up in bowls and brings them through to the living room, handing Bucky his before settling down on top of his feet again, doesn’t hurt. “I should’ve gotten you socks for your birthday,” Steve remarks around a mouthful of fettuccine, as Bucky wriggles his toes against the underside of his thigh. “I can feel how cold your feet are through my pants.”

“I hope you’d get me more than socks,” Bucky says, piercing his own gnocchi and dragging it off his fork in a way he hopes is appealing. Steve is watching him, and Bucky - try as he might - hasn’t forgotten Tony’s ultimatum.

“You’ll just have to wait and see what I got you,” Steve answers with a mysterious look, before they both return their attention to the screen.

It’s poor timing that the killing amps up when dinner arrives, but they both make it through with the food and wine safely in their stomachs. Red would’ve been a poor choice indeed. There’s a lot of blood on screen.

By the end of the documentary, Bucky feels warm around the edges, both from Steve’s closeness and the wine. He almost regrets the yawn that escapes him, because he knows it means he should go to bed, which means he should leave Steve’s presence. Bucky also knows the early bedtime means he’ll be woken up at around 4am by screaming children, and he’ll need all his energy to survive that.

“Bed?” Steve suggests, moving to gather up the plates and glasses, but Bucky beats him to it.

“Unfortunately,” Bucky says, carrying their dishes into the kitchen to rinse them off, putting the empty wine bottle into the recycling. With that simple task done, Bucky has nothing else to do but say goodnight and go to his room, alone save for the stack of gifts. Sadly, not a single gift for him. “Thank you for tonight. That was - nice.” The word _nice_ really doesn’t come close to describing how good it was, but Bucky can’t find a more suitable option. He doesn’t want to come on too strong, and he suspects that anything else he says will be just that.

“It was,” Steve agrees, fidgeting a little as he follows Bucky into the kitchen, though Bucky can’t tell why. “We should do that more.”

“Try and get those two into bed early? Good luck,” Bucky leans into his humour, because he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t want to spend more time with Steve and he’d be crossing boundaries if he said he did. Or was it okay, if Steve crossed them first?

Steve huffs out a short laugh. “We can only try.”

The conversation dies off there for a moment, and Bucky’s about to say goodnight and sneak down the hallway when Steve steps closer towards him, effectively drawing his mind away from any words and onto the implications of that. Another step closer and they’d be touching. “Listen, I thought you could have tomorrow off. For your birthday. Spend time with your family, or whatever you want to do. So I figured… I’d give you your gift now. Unless you have something against that?”

Bucky takes the hint - the physical and verbal crossing of lines - to step in himself, just close enough that he could sway into Steve’s arms, swoon like a classic heroine. Perhaps that’s his gift, to be caught by those arms. “I don’t think I could have anything against something you do,” Bucky says, head tilted up to meet Steve’s eyes.

“I might surprise you one day,” Steve answers, and maybe Bucky’s imagining it, or maybe he’s tilting his head down, closer. It takes a firm pressure on his chest for Bucky to step back and look away, and for a moment he thinks Steve is pushing him away.

But he’s not. His hand is on Bucky’s chest, but there’s something held in it. Bucky carefully reaches down, brushes Steve’s fingers with his, and takes the offered item. Small and thin, it looks to be exactly what Steve was staring at before dinner.

Even before Bucky sees it, he knows exactly what it is, but he has to look, just to confirm it’s real.

It’s a credit card with Bucky’s name on it. A _platinum_ credit card. With Bucky’s name right there. He runs his finger over the raised black letters. _His_.

“Happy birthday,” Steve says, voice too close and husky and Bucky’s unable to stop himself leaning in, lips brushing Steve’s cheek, the corner of his parted lips.

“That’s the one I owed you from before,” Bucky whispers. It’s electric being so close to Steve, feeling the way he shivers at their closeness. Bucky’s played this game before with dozens, if not hundreds, of people, but it’s never felt like _this_. He’s never felt himself shiver, too. It’s always been him in control, pulling the strings to get the reaction he wants, to get the pay cheque he desires.

Steve lets out a shuddery breath, and steps back. “Have a good night,” he says, and Bucky gets only a glance at his pink cheeks before he’s gone.

Well, Bucky will definitely have a good night with the thought that maybe what Tony wants him to do isn’t so impossible.

After all, Bucky wants to do it, and it certainly seems like Steve does, too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost at the end now! Thank you so much for the comments and love 💖💖 It means so much to me!

It’s late on a Monday. Steve has _just_ spent Bucky’s birthday caring for the girls completely alone while they were hyped up on sugar and new toys, Tony has _just_ decided that he’s releasing a new product in two weeks, and Steve is exhausted. He is beyond exhausted. He could sleep for the next week if only he wasn’t needed back at work bright and early to pull together all the graphics Tony needs for his product launch. In _two weeks_. Steve could kill him. He could kill whoever lets Tony decide to cram a six month process into _two weeks,_ but he knows for a fact that no one _lets_ Tony do anything. He just does it.

Steve pauses in the hallway to let out a very emphatic groan. Then, he continues on his way.

The girls are undoubtedly (read: hopefully) sound asleep by now, and so Steve quietly opens the door to let himself in.

What Steve expects to see when he enters his apartment is a whole lot of nothing. Bucky leaves the light on for him, but his sleep schedule has moved to accommodate the girls which means he’s usually only up an hour or two after they go down. Considering it’s now well past ten, Steve isn’t expecting to find the room full of anything except children’s toys placed in the perfect position to attack his bare feet.

What Steve sees instead is Bucky.

Bucky, who is laying on the couch in only a pair of sweatpants. It is a very distressing sight for Steve for many reasons. One, Bucky’s sweatpants are very tight, and Steve suspects Bucky isn’t wearing any underwear because he can see an outline of his dick. Two, Steve is exhausted and hasn’t gotten laid in a ridiculously long time, which leaves his poor brain torn between prioritising its horniness or its tiredness. Three, it takes him an awfully long time to think of what his daughter’s might have seen, which should be his first priority but got pushed aside in favour of looking at Bucky’s dick through his pants.

Bucky clears his throat. Steve’s face burns, because the sound is the only thing to draw his eyes up and away from Bucky’s groin.

“Long night?” Bucky asks sweetly, standing up and sauntering over to him, looking exceptionally smug.

_Don’t look at his dick_ , Steve tells himself. His mother would be appalled. “Uh, yes - yeah,” Steve manages, hoping and praying that his face is not as red as it feels. He can sense the tips of his ears _glowing_. “Sorry, I - was just gonna head off to bed.”

“I was going to ask a favour, actually,” Bucky says, coming to stand at a far enough distance from Steve that he doesn’t need to tilt his head to look down and - _enough_. “Lydia spilled her dinner all over my shirt, and my others are at the dry cleaners. You don’t have anything old I could throw on, just to sleep in?”

Steve’s mind stutters, reeling back in from the horny territory it had been encroaching and into an unexpectedly possessive realm. “Yes,” Steve says, nodding his head quickly and taking the opportunity to escape into the safety of his bedroom.

He leaves the door open to be polite, because he’d just been gaping at Bucky’s dick outline and now seems like a good time to remind Bucky that he does, in fact, have manners. Steve doesn’t expect Bucky to actually follow him, just for the sake of an old shirt.

Bucky, who evidently wants to make him suffer, leans against the door frame and watches Steve search through his drawers.

Steve sleeps without a shirt, even in the middle of winter, and so all he has on offer are the shirts he wears to the gym. There are a few old Stark Industries tees that Steve had gotten during retreats and fundraisers, but he skips those. He doesn’t want to think about Tony while he’s _trying_ to think about Bucky wearing his clothes. Instead, Steve settles upon one of his old college shirts - it’s faded over many years of wearing and washing, but it’s soft and comfortable. If Steve had to pick any shirt to sleep in, it’d be that one.

“Here,” Steve says, not fully trusting his voice to handle anything larger than one syllable as he holds out the folded shirt to Bucky.

Bucky takes it with a smile, pulling it straight on over his head. Though he’s fit - Steve did see some of his toned chest on his way down - the shirt hangs off of him. It works miracles for keeping Steve’s eyes at a respectable place, because it prevents Steve from seeing that tempting outline any longer. Steve watches Bucky trace the faded college logo with a finger, smiling faintly.

“Thanks, Steve,” Bucky says at last, looking up as if he wants to say something else. Steve feels pinned down by Bucky’s gaze, until he eventually just says, “sleep well,” and disappears.

Steve stares at the open doorway even after the lights flick off and he’s left standing in the darkness.

Eventually, exhaustion spurs Steve into movement. He shuts the door - mostly because leaving it open invites tiny visitors at heinously early hours - and then strips out of his clothes. Steve can’t even muster up the energy for a shower. He simply drops face-first onto the mattress, glad that he’s so tired he can’t dedicate too much energy towards thinking about how good Bucky looked in his shirt and those _fucking_ sweats.

—

The next morning Steve drags himself through the motions of being a human. He stumbles out into the kitchen, showered and still half-asleep, to place kisses on the tops of both Charlotte and Lydia’s heads and get himself a coffee. He mumbles something to the girls that is along the lines of how much he loves them, but as soon as the words leave his mouth he can’t remember the exact things he said.

It is en route to the coffee machine that Steve notices Bucky, still in his shirt from the previous night. His hair is sleep-ruffled, and the shirt hangs treacherously low on one side, revealing a collarbone that Steve wants to get his teeth on.

“Coffee?” Bucky says, holding out to him a reusable cup like an angel sent from heaven.

Steve cannot think of what to say or do. He stares lamely at the proffered cup, steam curling from the open hole like temptation. Steve could kiss him. Hell, Steve could _propose_ to him - could drop to his knees right then and there -

Maybe... without the girls present.

Instead of that, Steve takes the coffee cup and inhales a too-hot mouthful, desperate for something to breathe life into his body, which is more of an animated corpse than much else.

“Thank you,” Steve says emphatically, nursing the coffee cup a few moments longer as he draws his scattered thoughts together.

Work. Right.

“Have a good day,” Bucky says as he brushes behind Steve to get to the girls, and maybe Steve is crazy but he feels an awful lot of Bucky’s body slide against him, given the size of the kitchen.

Still, he’s not going to complain.

—

Over the next few days, Steve notices that despite the laundry being returned Bucky is still wearing his shirt.

Along with that, he notices Bucky’s closeness. He has always been a little like that, touchy-feely, but now it’s becoming more overt. Their hands don’t simply brush when they pass things to one another, but Bucky’s fingers stroke along Steve’s, making his breath stop. Bucky presses his hand to the small of Steve’s back when stepping around him in the kitchen and leaves it there longer than necessary, a brand scorching _Bucky_ into his skin. They watch TV together once the girls are in bed most nights, and Bucky makes a point of tucking his feet under Steve’s thighs every time, wriggling his toes so it’s impossible to ignore.

When you combine that with Tony’s daily enquiries about Bucky, and how he is, and if they’ve fucked yet or not, well…

Steve thinks he’s going crazy.

It feels like the world is conspiring against him.

Bucky had been drop-dead gorgeous the first time Steve saw him, and that hadn’t changed at all. The clothes he wears are specifically designed to highlight that, well-fitting designer pieces with gratuitous use of mesh (on shirts) and rips (on jeans). From there, Steve’s attraction to him had only grown after seeing him with the girls, firm but kind. There are moments Steve has caught Bucky, engrossed in a game of trains or letting the girls do his hair, and Steve feels his heart swell at the sight. For all Bucky is there to raise the girls with schedules and routines and rules, the times he indulges them are the times that Steve savours the most.

_But_ Steve is resolute. He won’t sleep with Bucky. It would be an abuse of his power to do so.

While the world feels as if it’s rearranging itself around Steve slightly left of centre, the one thing that doesn’t change is the girls. They are still as sweet and energetic as ever, even though the number of daily tantrums has increased as they slowly fight over every single new toy they got for their birthday. When he makes it home before their bed time ( _thanks, Tony_ ), Steve spends as much time with them as he can. He takes solace in it. It’s easier to play with unicorns than it is to focus on the way Bucky licks his lips, making Steve want so desperately to kiss them. He can build towers out of blocks instead of building up the silly little crush he has on Bucky into something it’s very much _not_.

It’s an avoidance tactic, but it’s the best Steve’s got right now.

—

Unfortunately for Steve, avoidance only seems to work for so long.

He tries to act as though everything is normal, but his thoughts - much like the girls - do not appreciate being ignored. Steve finds every spare moment consumed with thoughts of Bucky. In those ridiculous, beautiful outfits of his - in those sweatpants and Steve’s old tee - in nothing at all.

It’s becoming a bit of a problem.

Steve’s showers become longer as he tries to deal with the problem by letting it have its time to shine. He catches himself on a near-daily basis standing under the warm water, hard cock in hand, thinking only of Bucky. He thinks of the curve of his half-hard dick through his sweats.

What would Bucky do, if Steve sat down in front of him, mouthed over that sweet spot until he grew thick and fully hard? Steve wants to taste Bucky, every inch of him, explore his body with his mouth. He wants to kiss him and hold him, run hands over his chest and learn the spots that make him writhe.

Steve _wants_ Bucky in a way he hasn’t wanted anyone in a long time.

Of course, Steve’s plan of getting it out of his system backfires horribly when suddenly _every_ time he sees Bucky he thinks of him in a very inappropriate way.

Steve catches Bucky baking cookies with the girls, and his eyes hone in on the way he licks batter from the spoon. Steve’s gaze lingers on his fluttering eyelashes, the glimpse of pink tongue, the smear of batter on the end of his nose.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, and Steve is thrown back into his body - out of the world where it’s just him and Bucky on the kitchen bench with plenty of cookie dough just _begging_ to be licked up.

“There’s,” Steve’s strangled voice manages, and he gestures uselessly to the tip of his nose.

“Hm?” Bucky makes the sweetest little noise, and brushes at his cheek, completely missing the spot. “Is it gone?”

“No,” Steve says with a huff, because either Bucky is in on this whole conspiracy or the world really _is_ out to get him. He goes around to the other side of the island ( _don’t be weird, don’t be weird, don’t be weird)_ and wipes the cookie dough off Bucky’s nose cleanly.

The girls are completely oblivious to the internal struggle her father is having and the fact that the room is practically on fire with the tension in the air. They are, instead, dedicating their full attention to watching the cookies bake in the oven.

“You should try it,” Bucky says, a tad breathless up close. Steve glances at his lips, and maybe he imagines it but he can see small crystals of sugar there. “It’s good,” Bucky adds at Steve’s inaction, licking his lips.

_I’m in trouble_ , Steve thinks as he licks the cookie dough off his finger.

Bucky’s right, though. It _is_ good. Bucky’s eyes on his mouth, though, are even better.

—

After dinner - which had gone blissfully well due to the new rule that the girls were only allowed cookies if they ate _every_ vegetable presented to them - the lot of them wind up on the couch watching Frozen. _Again_.

Bucky takes up his usual spot on the end of the couch, and Steve takes his place at the othe, while the girls pile into the space between them. Lydia’s head winds up on Bucky’s lap, her feet prodding Steve’s side. Charlotte sits awkwardly atop her sister, falling asleep on Steve’s shoulder as the film continues.

“You got a sleeper up your end?” Bucky asks in a whisper loud enough to be heard over the film, which is only forty-three minutes in. Steve knows that, because he knows every _second_ of the stupid movie.

Steve turns his head and nods, careful to keep his shoulder still. The last thing anyone wants is to deal with an overtired child, let alone two of them, and Steve will do whatever it takes to avoid that happening.

“I’ll get them to bed,” Steve whispers back, gently lifting Charlotte into his arms first. She huffs a little, burying her face into Steve’s neck, but doesn’t awaken. He makes his way slowly through the apartment to their bedroom, opening the door with his foot and laying her carefully on her bed.

The moment of release is always the most tense, because - even as babies - the girls knew when someone was leaving. They would be sound asleep in Steve’s arms or in their carrier, but as soon as he tried to put them down it became a heavy metal-tier screaming match.

Luckily for him, that’s one habit they seem to have grown out of, and Charlotte merely rolls over and rubs her face against one of her many stuffed toys. Steve pauses, frozen in place, as Charlotte mumbles a few nonsensical word and then starts lightly snoring again.

Lydia’s a bit harder to get up as she’s sprawled across the couch, but Steve manages. Bucky stands up and stretches when he’s freed, mumbling, “I’m gonna tidy up,” as he gathers their empty dessert plates and takes them into the kitchen.

Despite Steve’s optimism, Lydia is a little harder to put down. She whines, still half-asleep, and it takes a few minutes of Steve sitting next to her, running his fingers through her hair and telling her softly to go to sleep to settle her.

Steve stands and shuts the door as carefully as he can, waiting with bated breath outside of it for someone to complain, but no sound comes. Night is the only time Steve can say quiet is a good thing with his two - during the day it meant they were getting themselves into something on a scale from _harmless shenanigans_ to _mortal peril_.

They really do take after their father, he supposes.

Back in the living room, Steve gives himself a moment to collapse on the couch, watching the credits roll on screen. Now that Tony’s product launch is finally, blessedly done, he doesn’t have to worry about getting into work before the sun does. He can relax.

Bucky reemerges from the kitchen and Steve watches as he gathers up the toys lying forgotten on the floor in his arm. He dumps all of them back into the overflowing toy box Steve had foolishly thought would stop the girls making such a mess of the place.

“They’ll just throw them everywhere again tomorrow,” Steve says dryly, trusting himself to speak a little louder now that the girls are several closed doors away and asleep.

“That’s okay,” Bucky says, pausing with his hands on his hips, surveying the room.

Steve watches as Bucky unloops a hair tie from his wrist and puts his hair up in a quick bun, his eyes now trained directly on Steve. Under such an intense gaze, Steve finds himself wondering what he did.

Then Bucky crosses the room to his side, places both his hands on Steve’s thighs, and sinks to his knees.

Steve instinctively lets his legs drift apart, mouth open and eyes trained on Bucky. This is like every fantasy he’s had the past few weeks multiplied by a thousand. Bucky is on his knees before Steve with his hair tied up, and Steve’s hands _ache_ to bury themselves in there and draw him in.

“Buck?” Steve asks, and his voice is horribly high, like he’s going through puberty again. With all the inconveniently timed erections he’s had lately, it doesn’t feel too far from the truth.

“The girls have lost the hairbrush for their mermaid pony,” Bucky says, and for a moment it’s like he’s speaking a whole other language. Steve, who no longer has any blood running to his brain, can’t translate it into simple English.

Then, very slowly, Bucky’s hands slide down Steve’s calves. They squeeze the muscle there, and then head lower. Bucky only stops when he’s got his cheek against the carpet, hand around Steve’s ankles, and ass in the air.

With one hand, he starts to grope around under the couch, and a horrible realisation dawns on Steve.

This isn’t what he, nor his cock, thinks it is. Not at all.

But, at the same time, this is _definitely_ more than nothing.

Steve chokes a little on his own breath as Bucky squeezes a hand around his ankle, focusing on the way those tight sweat pants work wonders on his ass too. From this angle, Steve’s shirt - which is now well and truly property of Bucky - slides down enough to show off a sliver of his lower back.

Steve manages to get some air into his lungs when Bucky sits up, shaking his head. “You haven’t seen it, have you?” Bucky asks. There’s a smirk on his lips, despite the fact that he’s curated a tone that suggests he’s disappointed. His hand is still wrapped around Steve’s ankle.

“No,” Steve says, strangled, and Bucky sighs.

He uses his hands on Steve’s knees once again to push himself to standing, and turns to leave before catching himself. Steve wants to say something smart. He wants to reel Bucky in and put him back on his knees, to watch that beautiful, smart mouth open wide around him and -

_No_. No. Bucky is off-limits.

“I forgot to give you this back,” Bucky says, and he lifts off Steve’s shirt and tosses it back towards him. It lands directly on Steve’s lap, which is probably good to hide his erection, as if Bucky doesn’t know exactly what’s going on down there.

The sway of his hips gives away that this is _exactly_ what he had planned.

So Steve has to fight back.

After taking a very long shower. To devise a plan. Obviously.

—

Steve’s opportunity to strike comes sooner than expected.

Peggy rings him up full of apologies - after a flight delay and several long-term jobs coming up, she’s finally able to come for a visit. It’s good because the girls had been hounding Steve about Aunty Peggy not making it to their birthday. Despite Peggy’s life being completely beyond Steve’s control, the girls did not care much for his flimsy excuses.

It also means Steve can use all the reconnaissance he’s done to try to crack Bucky. He’s been going shirtless more often, especially as the weather heads through to the warmer side of spring. He’s observed the way Bucky stares, for purely scientific reasons. Steve’s also reciprocated Bucky’s frequent, lingering touches, and he’s definitely caught a shudder once he placed his hand a little too low on Bucky’s back.

Bucky’s antics hadn’t stopped during that time, either, and even Lydia had piped up at one point and told the two of them to, “stop paying attention to each other!” While Steve suspects it was because she wanted all the attention paid directly to her, it still hit home how obsessive the competition between them was becoming.

Well, Steve isn’t a quitter. He’s determined to win.

After a whirlwind collection by Peggy, the events of the past few months relayed to Steve in the span of a minute, the two of them are left completely alone. There’s not long to act - Bucky’s using the time off from the girls to see his mother and sisters.

After a long stretch of time spent standing in the entry, enjoying the sudden silence that has come over the house, Bucky says he’s going to go organise the girls’ closets while he can. Steve takes that as his cue to disappear into his own room.

His plan is not the most well-thought out one, he knows that. Funnily enough, every time Steve thought about what Bucky was doing to him, he got very distracted and needed to take a moment to clear his head. But it was a plan, and that was better than no plan.

Steve changes into a pair of shorts he usually wears to the gym, situated just a little lower than usual. It provides an excellent view of his sculpted torso, as well as the line of blonde hair leading to a place Steve wants Bucky to go. Look at. Think about. Something.

Shirt in hand, Steve goes to the girls’ room to find Bucky.

True to his word, he’s tidying up the closet, making what seems to be a pile of clothes that no longer fit on Charlotte’s bed.

Steve leans against the door frame, mimicking the pose Bucky used on him while shirtless and in horrendously tight sweats. At least Steve wasn’t being that cruel in return. He was wearing underwear, after all. “Hey, Buck,” Steve says, effecting casualness.

Bucky looks up from a dress with tags still on, and his half-hearted glance turns into a double-take. “Forget how to put your shirt on?” He replies sharply, but Steve watches his eyes. He notices the trail they make, down his chest. The way they linger at the waistband of his shorts. All according to plan.

“Nah,” Steve says, sliding one arm into the sleeve of the shirt, leaving the rest of it off. “I was just thinking, maybe you could join me in the gym? I could use a spotter.”

It’s obvious that Bucky doesn’t know what a spotter has to do, because if he did he would know that Steve wouldn’t pick Bucky for the job. He just stares a moment longer before nodding. “Do I need to _actually_ do anything?” Bucky asks, and Steve briefly curses the man for his good genetics. Bucky’s chest looks perfect, and he doesn’t even go to the gym. Steve has to sneak in during his lunch breaks just to maintain the figure he has. Not that he minds - it’s a great way to take his mind off of things. Frustrating things. Things like Bucky.

“I could teach you a few exercises,” Steve offers, turning away from Bucky and pulling the shirt on at last. He specifically picked the tightest fitting one he has, the white fabric stretching thin over his chest.

“I don’t need to exercise,” Bucky calls out to him, and Steve looks over his shoulder to find Bucky heading towards his bedroom. “But I’ll come, just because you want me to.” He words it as though Bucky is the one doing Steve a favour, when really, Steve is doing him a favour. If his plan works out, he’ll finally know… well… something.

Before Bucky is ready to go, Steve is able to fill up a water bottle, grab his towel, and put his shoes on. He’s standing at the door waiting, when Bucky steps out in an obscenely tight pair of leggings. Steve wants to say they came from the womens department, because men never get anything with nice patterns on it like that, but he’s busy being distracted by the view. Aside from the leggings and sneakers, which are very much fashion sneakers and not exercise sneakers, Bucky is otherwise undressed.

“Think you could loan me that shirt, since it doesn’t fit you?” Bucky asks, plucking at the fabric on Steve’s chest, of which there is not much excess to grab at. He specifically picks the spot above Steve’s nipple.

Mentally, Steve curses him. But he doesn’t say it out loud. Instead, he merely quirks an eyebrow and asks slowly, “then what would I wear?”

“Have you seen yourself?” Bucky asks, and his hands are now toying with the shirt’s hem, and Steve is losing his resolve. “You don’t need a shirt.”

Steve steps in closer to Bucky, which forces the other man’s knuckles to brush against the skin of his stomach. Steve’s muscles twitch at the contact. “You’re gonna take the shirt off my back?” Steve retorts, to which Bucky simply raises his hands, peeling the tee off Steve’s body like a second skin.

Reluctantly, Steve steps back and finishes the job for Bucky, pulling it over his neck and tossing it at him. “Come on, then,” Steve says, opening the apartment door and leaving without Bucky.

By the time he reaches the stairs, though, Bucky has caught up to him. The shirt fits much more reasonably on him, so Steve will let it slide. He does wish it was a _bit_ tighter. No reason why Steve’s plan shouldn’t be fun for him, too.

“There is an elevator,” Bucky notes dryly as Steve opens the stairwell door and ushers Bucky inside.

“This is the warm-up,” Steve says, and he starts to take the stairs down two at a time, looking over his shoulder in time to catch Bucky’s eye-roll and sedate pace. “Lazy bones!” He calls up, voice echoing through the stairwell.

“I’ll get there when I get there!” Bucky yells back.

Steve’s laugh bounces around him as he jogs the five flights of stairs down to the floor the gym is on.

He doesn’t wait for Bucky to arrive, instead launching into some stretches that are done purely for the aesthetics of them, and not for any real physical benefit. This isn’t a workout for Steve to consider what his body needs - it’s to prove a point, to fight fire with fire. He’s warm and ready to go by the time Bucky joins him, looking displeased with the fact that he even had to take the stairs in the first place.

Bucky comes and sits on one of the benches while Steve sets his warm-up weights on the racked barbell. “What do you want me to do?” Bucky asks, feet planted one on either side of the narrow bench, leaving Steve with a perfect line of sight straight to where the leggings really are their tightest.

“Watch,” Steve says, checking that the plates are secure before stepping beneath the bar. “Check my form.” It’s not the most elegant seduction attempt, but he knows that he looks good - knows that _Bucky’s_ looked plenty of times - and he’s going to take full advantage of that.

“What’s it meant to look like?” Bucky asks from behind Steve as he completes his first squat.

He doesn’t answer, instead going through five more reps before finishing his set. “What do you think it’s supposed to look like?”

Bucky hums in thought, tapping one finger against his chin. “It looks to me like you’re trying to squeeze your ass right in my face.”

“You’re the one who wanted to sit there.”

Bucky smiles pretty at that. “I stand by my choice. Am I just here to watch you show off?”

“Would that be a problem?” Steve asks, adding an extra plate to each side of the bar.

Bucky just shrugs one of his shoulders, leaning back on his hands and leaving his legs open. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Steve moves through several exercises - all of which are selected for their appeal, not for their logical progression. It would throw out the split Steve usually exercised to, but that was fine. He’s got the sensation of Bucky’s eyes on him with every movement, and Steve is thoroughly enjoying the challenge Bucky gets in his eyes when Steve looks up to find him staring.

Despite the offer to teach Bucky some exercises, that doesn’t happen. Steve does a gentle workout, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his visible chest, while Bucky sits on the exercise bench and watches him.

The last thing Steve wants to do before leaving is the bench press because Bucky’s favourite place to stare is his arms (Steve’s noticed), but that would involve dislodging Bucky from his place. Steve takes his time adjusting the hooks holding the bar, and then modifying the weight. When there’s nothing else to do but the exercise itself, Steve pulls the bench in closer, earning a surprised yelp from Bucky.

“I’m gonna need this,” Steve states, sitting down in a mirror of Bucky’s position, legs falling open. His shorts ride up a little, and Steve’s not sure how much Bucky can see from there, but he knows that he’s looking.

“Can’t you work around me?” Bucky asks petulantly, but moves out of the way when Steve nudges him with his feet.

Not wanting to get injured in pursuit of his goal, Steve takes a moment to check his position and plant his feet on the floor. What he doesn’t expect, as he lifts the bar, is for Bucky to sit down on his thighs.

Lowering the bar to his chest, Steve asks, “do you mind?”

“Nope,” Bucky says, leaning forward as if to watch exactly what Steve’s doing. “I’m checking your form,” he answers, with that audacious mouth of his.

Steve tries to ignore Bucky, even as he slides a little closer, a little higher up, settling right over the top of his groin. Steve breathes in as he lowers the bar, and exhales when he pushes it back up. Bucky makes a lot of noises that suggest he’s thinking, but Steve can’t get his mind off of the fact that - if they removed a few little pieces of fabric - Bucky would be sitting directly on his dick.

It’d be a good look for him, too.

When Steve racks the bar, he takes a second to breathe, figuring out how to handle this curve ball thrown into his plan.

“Put your arms back on the bar,” Bucky instructs, looking deeply thoughtful, and Steve - who is definitely _not_ desperate to please, not at all - returns his hands straight to the warm metal.

Bucky’s fingers startle a breath out of Steve as they appear on his chest, drawing around his pecs, tongue poking out between his teeth. They roam lower down, brushing his abs, the defined lines of his six-pack. Steve is glad he left the bar racked, because he would’ve just dropped it on his face.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, voice tight, and then Bucky’s face appears right up close to his.

Bucky doesn’t bother hiding the way his eyes dip from Steve’s own down to his lips. Steve licks them as if on cue. “Checking your form, Steve,” Bucky says, sarcastically, and then his fingernail is pressing into Steve’s bottom lip. “Can I kiss you?”

“ _God_ , yes,” Steve says, and he meets Bucky halfway down.

It’s an awkward angle, but Bucky comes at him immediately with his teeth and tongue. There is no lead-up to this, or perhaps the past few weeks have been the foreplay for it all. Steve fists a hand in Bucky’s messy bun, gripping tight, while Bucky grasps Steve’s sweaty cheeks between his palms, thumbs digging into the juncture of his jaw. Bucky kisses like it’s what he came here to do, throwing himself completely into it, and Steve’s just trying to keep up. He gets lost in the filthy noises Bucky makes against him, still seated on his lap, rolling his hips down in a rhythm known only to him. Steve fights back as best he can, sucking Bucky’s bottom lip into his mouth and grinding his own hips up, arching his back and making Bucky fall further into him.

Bucky eventually draws back, panting heavily, a string of saliva connecting the two of them. Steve turns to bump his nose against Bucky’s, and Bucky leans down to bite his neck playfully.

“Fuck,” Steve breathes, and Bucky goes again - teeth sinking in a little further, dancing along that sweet knife-edge of pleasure and pain.

He blinks his eyes open and stares at the ceiling, the plain panels and tiny black surveillance camera staring back at him.

Wait.

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve hisses, sitting up quickly. He narrowly misses knocking himself out on the bar still hanging scarily close to his skull. “Fuck, there’s - camera’s here.”

Bucky just chuckles, raking his nails down Steve’s chest, taking their new position in stride. “Just get your buddy Stark to wipe them when we’re done,” Bucky says, wrapping his legs around Steve’s waist and leaning down to press an open-mouthed kiss to one of Steve’s hard nipples and -

Fuck.

He can’t do this.

“Bucky, stop,” Steve says, and Bucky immediately does so. He untangles his body from Steve’s, and - since there’s no space left to go on the bench - stands up.

Bucky holds his hands out to Steve in a very clear gesture of surrender. “Is everything okay?” Bucky asks.

“It’s fine, I just -” Steve scrubs a hand over his face. He can still feel the warmth where Bucky’s mouth was. He runs one hand lower, over the bruise he just knows is developing on his neck. “You work for me,” Steve says, hoping that explains it all.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair, trying to comb it back into decency after Steve had his way with it. He looks good with his hair all ruffled like that. “Steve, I’m not… I’m not trying to get with you because you’re my boss, okay?” Bucky says. He gestures to the end of the bench, and Steve scoots back so he can sit there.

“Tony’s always making these stupid jokes about me sleeping with the nanny,” Steve adds, glancing up again at the security camera. He knows Tony won’t just look for fun, but he also knows that if he ever mentioned anything about it Tony would have Jarvis working overtime to figure out where the footage was and how he could possibly play it on a Times Square billboard, just to ruin Steve’s life. “I never wanted to be that guy. It’d be taking advantage.”

“Steve, hey,” Bucky says, leaning across the bench to take Steve’s hands. He’s slow about it, giving Steve every opportunity to pull back, but he doesn’t. “You’re not taking advantage of me. I know I can say stop at any time.”

Steve lets out a frustrated sigh, because he doesn’t know how else to explain this. This wasn’t the _plan_. The plan was to show Bucky that this isn’t what he wants. He didn’t actually expect Bucky to be the one to make the first move. He _wants_ Bucky, wants him so badly, but even if Bucky doesn’t _think_ it’s an unfair power balance, it still is. “I’m sorry,” Steve says, squeezing Bucky’s hand and then releasing it. He stands up and picks his rumpled towel up, wiping his sweat off the bench.

Bucky stands and watches him clean, the weight of his stare heavy now on Steve’s back.

“I just need some time to think,” Steve offers gently, as he walks over to the elevator and presses the call button.

“Take all the time you need,” Bucky says quietly, but nudges Steve with his hip playfully nonetheless, walking over to the stairs. “Come on, lazy bones,” he says, and Steve can feel the truce offered there. It’s a joke, and all he needs to do is lean into it - which he does, shaking his head and smiling faintly before racing Bucky back upstairs.

—

Bucky showers and dresses (Steve doesn’t look too closely, because then his self-restraint really _would_ crumble) and goes to spend the evening with his family.

Steve sits down on the couch, orders take-out, and watches some shitty action movies to try and take his mind off of things.

Which, of course, fails.

It hasn’t been that long since Bucky arrived. It’s only the middle of _April_. Two months - two and a half months, _tops_. Yet Steve has come home to Bucky almost every night. He’s woken up knowing he’s in the house, another person there to care for his own little family. Steve can’t envision a day without Bucky, let alone a _life_ without him.

But that still doesn’t make it okay to want to be with Bucky.

Something explodes on the screen, and ordinarily Steve would enjoy the gratuitous violence and special effects, but he can’t shake the heavy thoughts circling in his brain.

The vibration of his phone is the thing that draws Steve out of his ruminations, and he checks the caller ID - _Tony Stark_ \- before answering.

“Hello?” Steve asks, hoping his voice doesn’t betray anything. Tony is like a shark, and the barest hint of something going on would be blood in the water, summoning him.

“What are you doing?” Tony inquires in lieu of a greeting.

Steve glances at the film. He tries to remember what it’s called and fails. “I was just watching a movie.”

“Okay, good,” Tony says, because Steve’s answer must mean something different in his own, weird language. “I wanted to talk to you about my birthday. Or Pepper does, more accurately. She wants to organise something.”

Then, without any kind of indication that the phone is about to change hands, Steve is greeted with Pepper’s voice - “Steve? Hello?”

“Pepper, hi,” Steve says, pressing pause on the movie he wasn’t watching anyway. “You know you could just call me yourself, right?” It’s not as though they don’t have each other’s numbers. They have, on multiple occasions, gone behind Tony’s back to either arrange something or keep him from something. Most often the latter. It was only by their conspiring that Tony was even alive to see his birthday, Steve felt.

He hears the sound of her laugh down the line, and Tony’s voice in the background. “I know. Tony decided he wanted something for his birthday, and he called you. But it’s not a surprise if he arranges it, you know.”

Steve rolls his eyes. He’s sure Pepper can sense the movement through the phone. “Of course,” Steve says. It’s classic Tony.

It’s lucky for Steve that he has Pepper to talk to, actually. Discussion of Tony’s birthday - his fortieth, no less - helps distract him from the other places his mind had been going. Pepper is much more of a party planner than Steve, but she takes his input and suggestions with the kind of grace that affects every interaction with Pepper. It’s very much an exercise in figuring out what you get the man who has everything, which - they eventually settle on - is a huge party. Time with friends, ridiculously delicious food, and an open bar. It’s got Tony Stark written all over it.

With promises to keep in touch throughout the planning process, Pepper hangs up the phone - just in time for Steve to hear the sound of keys in the door.

The distraction of Tony’s party - which promises to be the most over-the-top event of the year - isn’t enough to save Steve’s mind from leaping straight back to Bucky. Not when Bucky steps in, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, looking like a supermodel delivered straight to him from the afterparty.

“You’re up late,” Bucky says, making his way over to Steve and flopping dramatically next to him on the couch.

“You’re home late,” Steve counters, turning and drawing one leg onto the sofa between them as some kind of protection. Maybe if something’s in the way, Steve won’t accidentally close the space between them.

Bucky shrugs loose and easy, just like his smile. “Liz brought wine. I wasn’t gonna be rude.”

Steve wants to taste the wine on Bucky’s tongue. “I’ve been thinking,” Steve says, and Bucky turns to look at him, eyebrow raised. When Steve hesitates, Bucky waves his hand in a _get on with it_ kind of way. “I just don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you. That’s all.”

Steve would be a liar if he said he didn’t want Bucky. He does. He wants Bucky _so_ _bad_. Every time he’s tried to talk himself out of it, Steve’s only realised how much he _doesn’t_ want to give this up. Just one taste of Bucky was addictive - he can’t quit.

Bucky places a hand on Steve’s knee, held between them like a barrier. He slides closer. It takes him a moment to compile his thoughts, mouth opening a few times before he rethinks his words. “I haven’t been totally honest with you,” Bucky says at last, eyes meeting Steve’s then darting away.

“I’ve seen the credit card statements, Buck,” Steve answers smartly, and Bucky swats his leg, laughing.

“It’s not that,” he says, and the good humour drains again as something like worry crosses his features. “I didn’t - I’m not a nanny. Or I wasn’t, when I got here. It’s funny, actually,” Bucky doesn’t look as if he finds any part of this funny, and Steve’s just watching, trying to piece together what he’s saying. “Uh… I actually was hired by Tony to come over and… keep you company?”

Steve blinks at Bucky. It doesn’t make any sense. “Keep me company?” Steve wasn’t lonely. He had two children. He’d kill to be alone sometimes. And if Tony himself wanted Steve to be kept company, he’d show up at his apartment and harass him. Steve knew that for a fact, because it happened more often than he’d like.

“I’m trying to be _eloquent_ ,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes. “I’m an escort, Steve. Or I was. Until I got the job with you.”

Oh.

_Oh._

It explains - a lot, actually. The way Bucky had looked when he first showed up, dressed far nicer than anyone who was about to tackle four-year-old twins had any right to be. The easy way he moved his body around Steve, utilising small touches and looks to drive him crazy. The flirtatiousness of his entire _existence_ , the way each word Bucky picked held layer upon layer of additional meaning.

Prior to being the best nanny Steve had ever had, Bucky had - slept with people for money.

“Are you going to say something?” Bucky’s obviously waiting to be fired, turned away, _something_.

Steve laughs. It is, perhaps, a little hysterical. “No wonder you’ve got the patience of a saint.” It’s all he can think. Bucky’s career prior to this doesn’t bother Steve - it’s not like Bucky’s been fucking people _in_ Steve’s house. It’s a full-time job caring for his girls.

Bucky laughs, too, though he still looks hesitant. “I’ve dealt with worse than two children, believe me.”

When Bucky’s laugh peters off, they’re left in this awkward, silent space. “I just want you to stay,” Steve says, and he’s quietly, horribly vulnerable. It doesn’t matter to him what Bucky did, but he needs him around. For the girls, and for his own sake.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Bucky says, and he crawls closer, propping himself up with his hands on Steve’s thighs. “When you opened the door to me that first day, I thought I’d hit the fucking jackpot.”

Steve leans forward, drawn helplessly into the gravitational pull of Bucky’s bright eyes, his parted lips. “And what do you think now?”

“Now I know I have,” Bucky answers and pounces, his wine-stained lips colliding with Steve’s.

Steve wraps both his hands around Bucky’s waist, pulling him fully onto his lap. He loves the size of Bucky - small enough to be manhandled, big enough to press against his chest. Bucky laughs into the kiss, sloppy, his teeth knocking against Steve’s. Steve lets him, savouring the moment between them, enjoying the taste and closeness of Bucky. His hands wander - one around to Bucky’s ass, firm and taut, the other under the hem of his shirt, brushing against his shuddering stomach. 

It seems as if Bucky’s making himself at home on Steve’s lap, and Steve really has no complaints about that. He keeps his mouth on Steve’s body - on his jaw, his neck, further down to a collarbone - while his hands roam far and wide. Steve squeezes one of Bucky’s ass cheeks, relishing in the surprised squeak he earns in response. For someone who did this for a living, Bucky is so natural about it - Steve wants to think it’s because what’s between them _is_ natural, not a job, but he also suspects his extensive practice comes into things.

“Wait,” Steve says, mind catching up despite the delightful weight writhing around on his lap. “Did you say _Tony_ paid you?”

Bucky blinked up at him, aiming for the sort of sweet, innocent expression the girls give him when they’ve done something wrong. “Can I distract you from that?” Bucky asks, grinding down on Steve’s lap optimistically.

“You’ll have to work pretty hard on that,” Steve says, turning and pushing Bucky back onto the couch, crawling over his body and pinning him down.

Bucky laughs, wrapping his legs around Steve’s waist. “I’ve never been afraid of a little hard work,” he says, and gets to it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Thank you so much for all of you who came along for this wild ride. I have loved every second of it (well, every second except the writing seconds), and I'm pleased to present to you the last chapter, aka. they finally bang.
> 
> Please note that the sex scene(s) herein are purely fantasy and are not at all how real sex probably works! So please keep in mind that this is all fun and don't get at me for realism because in my fanfic world I do what I want. 💁♀️

The girls are really starting to grate on Bucky’s nerves.

Since the day he and Steve had finally kissed, Bucky had anticipated things to be on an upward trajectory. Not only was he allowed to exist in the presence of Steve Rogers, but he was allowed - nay, _welcome_ \- to look and touch all he wanted.

And Bucky wanted. Bucky wanted _a lot_.

The girls, however, with some kind of sixth sense, know _exactly_ when Steve and Bucky are about to do anything.

He puts them to bed and joins Steve in his room, fully anticipating on breaking in Steve’s king bed in _properly_ , and suddenly someone is crying because they need a drink of water. Or the toilet. Or they’re scared. Or their sister is snoring too loudly. Or they’re sick.

Bucky has been caught in many compromising positions. He has been on his knees, Steve’s legs spread either side of him, cock just breaching his lips, and then - “ _Daddy!_ ” He has been pinned to the bed, wrists crossed and held down above his head, Steve’s other hand teasing him, just about to form a fist around him, when - “ _Bucky!_ ”

It’s _really_ making Bucky’s life a challenge.

Living with Steve and knowing he couldn’t have him was bad enough. But knowing he _can_ have him and not being able to?

That’s even worse.

Aside from a few lucky hand jobs and some good morning blow jobs, they’ve made it approximately no where. Bucky can’t even take his time and enjoy the newfound intimacy he shares with Steve, because any time they initiate contact a countdown timer sets off in the heads of both girls and he has to finish them off before it reaches zero. And Steve, because Bucky has noticed now that the man is an absolute _asshole_ , has taken to whispering some truly filthy things in Bucky’s ear at _very_ inappropriate times, which has led him to two conclusions. One, Steve is the worst person alive. Two, Steve is far more experienced and dirty than Bucky ever gave him credit for. So Bucky has been stuck for weeks now - _weeks_ , which is basically decades in blue-ball land - with a man intent on driving him wild and two girls focused on ensuring he never gets what he needs.

It is for this infuriating reason that Bucky is extremely excited for Tony’s fortieth birthday party, which is happening in approximately three hours.

To begin with, he was not excited at all. Tony was not Bucky’s best friend, and - despite being the reason Bucky is now at least able to say he’s had Steve’s beautiful dick in his mouth - there’s a lot of tension still between them. It didn’t help that Tony called Steve at all hours of the day while planning this stupid party making demands. Not even Steve coming home late one evening with boxed up samples from the caterers was able to win Bucky over, but it did smooth the way somewhat.

No, the reason Bucky is so excited for this stupid party is because Tony Stark has invited Charlotte and Lydia to stay at his place with Morgan and a babysitter.

And Bucky, with his hand on Steve’s dick late at night and his eyelashes fluttering _just so_ convinced him that they really should book a hotel for the evening, just because. Treat yourself, and so on.

When Morgan and Tony’s driver appear to collect them, Steve kisses both girls on the head and tells them he loves them while Bucky ushers them out of the door as quickly as he possibly can.

He has priorities, and the girls can be put on the back burner for one night at least.

“Excited about something?” Steve asks, when the door closes and the world around them is silent and beautiful.

“Excited to get ready,” Bucky purrs back, wrapping a hand around the back of Steve’s neck and drawing him in for a brief kiss. “Are you excited?”

Steve hums, chasing Bucky’s lips even when he’s met with a hand instead of the mouth he’s looking for. “Excited to get you alone later,” Steve says, abandoning his kissing plan and instead reaching one hand around to smack Bucky’s ass.

Bucky swats him away and disappears into his room. It’s not exactly _his_ room any more - Bucky sleeps in Steve’s room on a nightly basis now, and he doesn’t care what Steve thinks of it because it’s not changing. His old room, however, has a sizable closet, and Bucky likes to store his clothes separately to Steve’s so that he has a separate dressing room and bedroom. Steve has yet to protest, and Bucky wouldn’t care even if he did.

The process of getting ready for Bucky has always been one he enjoyed. Since working with children full-time, there has been less of a focus for him on spending that time primping and preparing. It’s especially difficult when one can barely wake up without a child throwing themselves full-force at you, let alone trying to maintain a five-step skincare routine twice-daily.

Bucky plans to remedy that.

“Don’t use the hot water!” He calls out into the apartment, and doesn’t wait to hear an answer from Steve before turning on the shower. He doesn’t care that there’s enough to go around. This time is all about Bucky.

Bucky has many special things planned for this evening, but there is some serious preparation involved in getting there. There are the hair and face masks that he applies with loving care, letting the steam of the shower work them in as he concentrates on the rest of his body. Bucky indulges himself in a full-body scrub, getting every inch of skin as smooth as possible. He shaves the places that need shaving, and trims the others, because if Steve is going to be spending the night enjoying Bucky’s body he wants it to be bared to him in all its glory.

The process Bucky undergoes would ordinarily result in Bucky freezing his ass off as the hot water ran out in his shitty old apartment, but today he can take his time. He remains under the warm water to work on the final part of his prep for the night - a hand-blown glass plug, lubed up and eased into his body over a pleasurable (and perhaps excessive) ten minutes. It settles sweetly between his cheeks, the end of it adorned with diamonds. Bucky hopes Steve had seen the transaction, the hundreds of dollars disappearing from his account next to the name of a very well-known sex store. Bucky hopes Steve’s been thinking about it since it popped up there, wondering what - exactly - Bucky got.

Finally, regretfully, Bucky turns the shower off and towels off. He applies moisturisers and serums, admires himself in the mirror at all angles, ensuring he is at his best for Steve. The plug is a reminder of what’s to come later every time he twists and moves in a certain way, and Bucky considers the possibility of taking Steve now, before they leave - but no. He has to get ready.

Bucky dries his hair and curls it, spending time ensuring each strand falls _exactly_ where he wants it. He runs his fingers through it to loosen up the curls, enjoying the feeling of the silky strands against his skin - anticipating the mess Steve will make of it later, his big hands fisting in there.

“Focus,” Bucky breathes to himself in the large mirror. The game here is not merely sex, but the art of the tease. It’s not just the tease of the evening, but of the months it’s taken them to get to this stage. The extended foreplay of it all promises the sweetest pay off, and Bucky isn’t leaving anything to chance.

This will be his night.

He dresses in an outfit that Steve has also likely seen come up on his bank statement. Bucky slides into a rich red lace bustier, another delightful find from the womens wear department that, with some tweaks, fits him beautifully. Men really don’t get enough sheer clothing catered to them for Bucky’s tastes, so he makes do.

Over top of that he puts on a grey suit - custom-made, of course - and buttons it in the middle. There’s just a peak of red lace between the lapels: enough to be high fashion for everyone else, a horrendous tease for Steve.

That’s Bucky’s goal, in life and for the evening: drive Steve mad, be appreciated by everyone else.

It’s taken him over an hour to reach this point of preparation, and Bucky’s sure that Steve will be annoyed at having to wait so long to use the shower, but that’s his problem.

When Bucky emerges from the bathroom, smelling of a delicious mix of different scented products, he doesn’t go straight for Steve. As much as it pains him, Bucky instead goes into his bedroom to pack for their evening away in the hotel. It is at times like this that Bucky is thankful for his previous profession and the skills it gave him. He can pack a bag in less than a minute, because he knows exactly what he needs: two changes of underwear, a small towel, a pair of civilian clothes for his walk of shame (only, on this occasion, his walk of shame will be down to breakfast on Steve’s arm), copious amounts of lube, baby wipes, and a small toiletries kit.

Finally, with shoes on and the bag held in his hands, Bucky is ready to go. And there’s only an hour until the party officially starts. That’s good timing - he’d really aimed for making them fashionably late. He might have to do something on the way to slow them down.

Bucky enters the living room to find Steve already waiting for him, and it seems that Bucky isn’t the only person intent on teasing the other today. Steve’s wearing a charcoal suit that is cut so perfectly to his body that Bucky can envision every part of his bare skin beneath it. The dress-shirt that peeks out beneath is a lighter grey, to match Bucky’s suit, and his tie is the exact red of Bucky’s semi-hidden bustier. What gets to Bucky most about his look is the little things: the way his hair is neatly parted and smoothed down, the expensive watch on his wrist, the shine of his shoes. It’s the understated look of wealth that Bucky is drawn to - perhaps because he, personally, leans to the obscene side of things.

“Looking good,” Bucky says, coming to stand before Steve, taking him all in. He could stare for days and still not be satisfied, especially when he looks like _this_.

“And you,” Steve breathes, and Bucky’s giddy on the sound of it. Carefully, Steve takes one strand of Bucky’s hair and toys with it, before leaving it just the way he’d found it. Hot and considerate. The full package. “You look amazing.”

Bucky looks away, playing coy, because he knows what it does to Steve. “Shall we?” Bucky asks, offering his hand to Steve.

But Steve doesn’t take it.

He instead takes a half-step back, and puts a hand into his pocket. “I have something for you,” Steve says as he gropes around, eventually pulling out a red jewelry box, the same red as Bucky’s shirt, the same red as Steve’s tie.

Steve turns the box to face him, and opens it up. Bucky can read the nerves on his face, well-hidden beneath that beautifully handsome exterior of his. Steve turns the box around, and there - nestled in black beneath the Cartier name - is a diamond ring.

Bucky stares, mouth agape.

The ring itself is made of gold while paved diamonds line the outside. It must be at least ten thousand dollars worth, if not more.

“Are you _proposing_ to me?” Bucky asks, eyes jumping up from the glittering ring to Steve’s face.

Steve frowns, just a tad. “Would you say yes if I was?”

There’s an awful lot of sincerity in his voice. Bucky holds his hand to Steve - his _right_ hand - allowing him to place it on his ring finger. It’s a perfect fit. “I’d need a bigger rock than this,” he says, though he smiles at the diamonds as soon as they settle on his hands. “And you didn’t even get down on one knee.”

“I could get down on _both_ knees, if you want,” Steve offers, palming a hand over the front of Bucky’s slacks, and - in a show of great strength - Bucky pushes his hand away.

“You’re not making a mess of these,” Bucky says, stepping back to preserve his personal space and the effort he put into curating his impeccable look. “Do you know how much these pants were?”

“Probably better than you do, baby,” Steve says around a put-upon sigh, taking Bucky’s overnight bag from him and leading the way to the door.

—

They arrive at the event late, because Bucky insists on it.

Tony, by merit of being Tony, has a red carpet leading into the ballroom hired for the event. There are a number of photographers lining the carpet, though Bucky suspects they’re not paparazzi, but simply hired to take photos of everyone, even the people who don’t look _that_ good.

Bucky, by merit of being himself, wraps his arm around Steve’s bicep and takes his time parading down the entrance. He enjoys the looks, the camera flashes - it’s like the dreams he’d had of being a celebrity are all coming true. No one calls his name, but Bucky offers them a sweet smile over his shoulder as he hangs off Steve’s arm anyway.

Inside, Bucky realises he knows approximately nobody. Which is fine, because his job is to be with Steve, and he thinks he’s overqualified, but it is a little intimidating.

Steve parades Bucky around the room, introducing him to everyone as his partner, which makes Bucky preen where he continues to hang off Steve’s arm. They hadn’t previously discussed what to call each other - the girls still didn’t know anything was happening - but Bucky’s happy with party. He’s more than happy, actually. The way the single word _partner_ makes his heart flutter is terrifying and irresistible in equal measure.

Around the room, Bucky meets several people. He meets Natasha, who looks stunning in a dress with a split so high he thinks he might learn more about her than he expects to. They spend ten minutes chatting, a time in which Bucky politely asks her what she does for work and she talks him in so many circles that Bucky leaves the conversation with more questions than he’d started with.

Then there’s a man called Thor, who is extremely sweet, though he lacks an understanding of the concept of an inside voice. At least he makes more sense than Natasha, _and_ Thor spends most of the conversation complimenting Bucky, so he absolutely will not complain.

Of course, they have to spend time with the birthday boy himself, who is insufferably drunk already. Bucky has to gently move Tony’s arm from around his shoulders multiple times, as he keeps creasing Bucky’s suit. Steve, who is a much more patient and kind person than Bucky is, replaces himself under Tony’s grasp.

“No, I wanna talk to your boyfriend,” Tony insists, pulling his arm back from around Steve and gesturing at Bucky to follow him.

Bucky turns to look at Steve, hoping perhaps that he might be able to save him, but Steve simply shrugs. Bucky narrows his eyes. “Fine,” he says, with a scowl directed first at Steve, then at Tony, before he follows the latter over towards the bar.

“So you did it,” Tony announces, loudly enough for everyone else to turn to them, and Bucky could kill him.

Instead, Bucky smiles very sweetly, the sort of smile he used to use on the rich customers he wanted to murder. “So I did,” Bucky says, selecting a flute of champagne from the bar top and taking a large mouthful.

“And now you’re his boyfriend,” Tony says, continuing to draw unwanted attention their way.

“ _Partner_ is the word we use,” Bucky corrects, polite but sharp, stepping back to put some distance between the two of them.

Tony rolls his eyes and gestures towards the bar, which results in several drinks materialising by his arm. He takes two of them. “Did you forget your manners on the way over?” Tony asks, and Bucky is momentarily stumped. “You’re welcome,” Tony helpfully supplies, and Bucky tries very hard not to throw the champagne all over him.

“I’m not thanking you when I’m the one who did all the hard work,” Bucky replies, no longer operating under any pretenses.

“I bet you did some hard work,” Tony says with a wink, nudging Bucky despite his obvious displeasure at the physical contact. “And anyway, good for you. I haven’t seen Steve this happy in ages. All he needed was a good dicking, who knew?” Tony shrugs grandly, throwing his arms out to each side of his body. “Well, me, I knew. Anyway, you look good. Have fun!”

With that, Tony is off, disappearing into the crowds that welcome him like their god.

Bucky lets out a breath, finishes his champagne, and finds Steve.

—

They stay through the happy birthday song and the cake and the speeches, even though Bucky is eager to leave.

“I’ll text the driver,” Steve leans down to whisper in Bucky’s ear once the spectacle is over, and it’s the sweetest thing he’s heard all night.

It sustains Bucky through the rounds of farewells they have to do, shaking hands and pressing distant kisses to the cheeks of people he doesn’t even remember. All he can think about, all his mind can focus on, is Steve.

Steve, in that beautiful suit. Steve, _out_ of that beautiful suit. Steve in him and around him and on top of him.

Bucky is, perhaps, a little preoccupied.

Within the confines of the ballroom, Bucky stays politely on Steve’s arm, but as soon as they’re outside he’s practically dragging him by the wrist towards the idling car.

As soon as the doors are open and they’re inside, Bucky places himself on Steve’s lap and runs a hand through his perfect _fucking_ hair. “Fuck,” Bucky says, settling himself on Steve’s body, feeling the plug shift with the movement. “I’ve been trying not to jump your bones for four _fucking_ hours,” he hisses, looping a hand in Steve’s tie to reel him in closer. “You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that?”

Steve, whose legs have fallen outwards to attract Bucky’s attention to a very specific part of his body, just laughs, the bastard. “The hotel’s twenty minutes away, baby. You can’t wait?”

Bucky’s answer comes in the form of a fierce kiss, the opening move in a battle he intends to win. Steve’s a good kisser - he takes direction well, and anything Bucky responds to he does over and over again - but Bucky’s not here for the equal give and take.

He lets his mouth slide wet and filthy against Steve’s while his hands go straight to his belt, undoing it and tossing it aside. Bucky then works on Steve’s button and fly, only doing enough to free his cock from its confines, no more. He hasn’t got time for that.

“I need you inside me,” Bucky growls against Steve’s ear, biting his earlobe and tugging, earning himself a stuttered moan for his effort.

“We’re - in the _car_ , Buck,” Steve manages, hands scrabbling for purchase on Bucky’s ass.

“Don’t care,” Bucky says, undoing his own fly but not to free his cock.

No, Bucky undoes his fly enough that he can take Steve’s hand and place it on his bare ass, then down, to where his entrance has been waiting for him all night, lubed up and stretched open.

Bucky watches as Steve discovers it, watches the way his eyes go dark and suddenly exhibitionism is completely on the table. “You fucking tease,” Steve growls in that low voice of his that goes straight to Bucky’s cock. He rolls his hips, and Steve grabs the end of the plug, thrusting it in and out of him without preamble.

“I can’t wait,” Bucky says. He notices the radio turn on up front, the music loud enough to cover the sounds they’re making.

He fucking loves rich people sometimes. Paying for discretion is the greatest thing that’s happened to him lately. Apart from Steve.

Bucky also, coincidentally, loves fucking rich people, especially the one that’s working the plug in and out of his ass at a pace designed to drive Bucky wild.

“You planned ahead, huh?” Steve asks, gravelly voice by Bucky’s ear, teeth scraping his jawline.

“Uh-huh,” Bucky answers, words beyond him as he rocks himself back and forth on the plug. It’s good, but it’s not enough. “I want you,” he manages between shaky breaths.

Steve pulls the plug free of Bucky’s hole, and Bucky whines. “Shh,” Steve soothes, repositioning Bucky on his lap - his back against Steve’s chest, his eyes on the open windscreen before him, the averted eyes of the driver. “Hope you’re ready,” he says, as if Bucky isn’t a boy scout when it comes to fucking - he’s never unprepared for this.

Despite the hands on his hips, lining him up and holding him steady, Bucky rolls himself lower, fucking himself down onto Steve’s dick. He’s long and thick - Bucky knows, he’s tasted it, felt it, _imagined_ it - and it’s a stretch, more painful than Bucky usually goes for.

But it’s Steve, who’s running a hand up and down his chest beneath his shirt. Steve, murmuring, “good boy, that’s it,” against his ear, words and touch making Bucky shudder.

Steve soothes him through the initial stretch and burn, peppering his neck with kisses as he gasps for air and the radio turns up a little louder in the front.

It’s only once Bucky’s settled that he realises this is really happening. After so many foiled attempts, Bucky’s seated on Steve’s lap while they’re driven across the city to a luxury hotel suite for the night.

It’s every dream he’s ever had come true, and Bucky laughs at the absurdity of it all. Steve, there, holding him steady with his hands, smiling into his neck.

“You okay?” Steve asks, and Bucky is _so much more_ than okay.

He grasps Steve’s hands where they’re holding Bucky’s hips, feeling the new weight of the expensive ring on his finger. Bucky turns his body at an angle so he can still see Steve, much preferring the sight of his face over that of their drive. Then he gets to work.

Bucky starts off at a slow pace, rocking his hips rather than bouncing up and down, getting used to the feel of Steve. His eyes fall closed as he focuses on the feeling of Steve inside him - larger there than he’d ever felt in Bucky’s fist, or against his tongue. There are no complaints at his approach - when Bucky opens his eyes, Steve’s just got his head tossed back against the headrest, lidded eyes focused on his movement and teeth biting his lower lip in restraint.

He adds a little more movement to it, starting to slide his body up and down, angling himself for maximum pleasure. Steve will be happy with whatever he gets - Bucky, however, wants to feel Steve hitting him _just so_.

The world ceases to exist around them. Bucky can only feel Steve’s body beneath him, holding and being held, everything else galaxies away. Steve’s eyes haven’t left Bucky’s body, have barely even blinked, and Bucky’s coordinating his movements to the ragged groans he manages to pull from the man when he moves in the perfect way.

“Please,” Bucky says, voice hoarse, at last. His own cock is throbbing, bouncing against his stomach in time with each of Steve’s thrusts. It begs to be touched. He longs for Steve’s hands to move off his waist and lower down.

Steve draws his head up and kisses Bucky’s neck, and moves his hands a fraction - but only to tighten his grip. Then Steve uses them as leverage to fuck up into Bucky, now, pulling his body down to meet him at every thrust. Bucky feels a bit like a ragdoll, no longer in control of his own destiny, merely hanging on for dear life and savouring every bit of it that he can.

“Buck,” Steve mouths into his neck, biting a pleasured cry into his abused flesh, and Bucky would take one hand and touch himself only he’s not sure he can let go of Steve without floating off into another dimension.

“Steve,” Bucky cries in response, arching his back and guiding Steve to pound against his sweet spot, clenching his eyes shut and letting the pleasure roll through him.

With a louder groan, Steve shudders beneath Bucky - his thrusts lose whatever semblance of pace they once had, and then he feels Steve spill inside of him. Steve’s hair is a mess, his head dropped against Bucky’s shoulder, and his hips are stuttering out the last of his orgasm, letting Bucky milk him dry.

Slowly, sense returns. Bucky can hear a pop song on the very loud radio. There’s honking in the distance. His ass is still full of Steve, and his cock is still _very hard_.

“We’re almost there,” Steve says, lifting his head from Bucky’s shoulder, eyes unfocused. “Should get you cleaned up.”

Steve pats Bucky’s hair, trying to rearrange it into some kind of order, but Bucky turns his head away. “I know a better place you could put your hand,” he suggests, leaning over to nip at the tip of Steve’s nose.

Steve considers that - or looks as if he considers it - before his hand leaves Bucky’s hair. “Down here?” Steve asks, teasingly, and Bucky feels his hand run over the sensitive skin at the very top of his thigh, surprising a moan from him.

“Mhm,” Bucky manages, eyes closed - still on Steve’s dick, still enjoying the feeling of fullness, “bit higher, though.”

Instead of what he expects, though, there’s movement towards his hole. Steve slides himself out, and before Bucky can lament the loss, the plug is being pressed back inside of him.

“Steve!” Bucky cries, eyes flying open to meet a very amused expression.

“I want to take my time with you,” Steve says, settling the plug in place. “When we’re upstairs, I’ll deal with this.” He nods his head to Bucky’s crotch and the very obvious _need_ there, as if it’s a minor inconvenience.

“You expect me to walk through the lobby with your cum in my ass?” Bucky hisses, feeling - honestly, a little betrayed, a lot turned on. There’s no way he’ll be able to walk properly. Everyone will notice.

Steve nods his head, then gently places Bucky on the seat beside him so he can pull his pants up. “Everyone will see you and know you’re mine,” Steve says casually, leaning against the door of the car so he can face Bucky. “Look at you,” he coos, brushing his fingers over a wet spot on Bucky’s neck, “you’re a mess.”

Bucky’s never been so proud of being a mess, and he’s been doing that for his entire life thus far.

Without waiting for acknowledgment, Steve opens the door and steps out. He looks ravished, which brings Bucky some amount of peace, but he does it in a handsome way - all tousled hair and a sheen to his cheeks. Bucky looks the other sort of ravished, the artless sort of ravished, with wet patches forming on his fucking pants and his cock so hard he cant walk right - or maybe it’s the fact that he’s trying very hard _not_ to look like Steve just plugged his ass full of cum - which, for the record, is not even _remotely_ close to how that actually works. Bucky can feel it sliding out of him. He knows.

Still, Bucky is not about the let the state of him get in the way of a good night. No one else in the building can say they just got fucked in the backseat of a chauffeured car coming from a stupid expensive party by someone as fucking handsome as Steve. Bucky’s done many walks of shame, and the key is to simply hold your head high, act confident, and think about the good dick you’ve just had.

And, in this particular instance, the good dick Bucky is _about_ to have.

The driver, who is very resolutely avoiding eye contact with them, carries their bags over to the bellhop who is dressed in a ridiculously fancy old-fashioned outfit. Bucky watches the exchange between them and catches the look the bellhop shoots his way. He catches up to Steve and encircles one of Steve’s arms between his, hanging off of him like the beautiful, debauched arm candy that he is.

Steve’s wandering hand gropes his ass while they wait for the elevator, and Bucky swats him away, playing at coy even as every single person within the hotel itself (and anyone on the nearby sidewalks) knows Bucky’s an absolute slut for Steve’s dick. He’s a sure thing. He’s not even very good at playing coy, because he leans into Steve’s hand when he gropes again and gives up on correcting him.

Unfortunately for them, the bellhop joins them in the elevator because his job is to guide them to their rooms. Bucky is quite distressed by this because the customer service expectations really get in the way of him climbing Steve like a tree in the elevator and shoving his tongue down his throat.

At least the bellhop doesn’t bother making small talk, and instead merely stands by the door until they reach their floor, and then walks them to their door.

“If there’s anything I can do, please let me know,” he says, with the most sincere smile given he’s definitely noticed the state of both of them. Then again, rich people probably come here to fuck all the damn time. Bucky bats his eyelashes a little while Steve thanks the man, and then they’re free.

With a mechanical click, the door opens, and Bucky shoves Steve in ahead of their luggage.

_Fuck_ the luggage. He has more important business to attend to.

Bucky places his hands on Steve’s cheeks and yanks him down into a deep kiss, filthy with need - there’s no finesse here, because Bucky doesn’t need it. What he needs is release, and he reminds Steve of this by grinding his cock - still hard as a rock, thanks for asking - against Steve’s also rock hard thigh.

“Steve,” Bucky pleads as he mouths at Steve’s neck, sucking on his collarbone in a spot low enough down that it won’t be visible at work. “Please, Steve.”

Steve’s hand slides up the back of Bucky’s shirt, large palm dragging warmth up and down his spine. Bucky shudders against him, about ready to rub himself off against Steve’s leg like a high schooler if he must.

Then Steve’s gently ducking free of Bucky’s hold, holding him at a distance, and somehow managing to ignore Bucky’s pathetic whine. “You need to get cleaned up.”

“What I _need_ is for you to get me off,” Bucky all but snarls in response, trying to get past Steve’s very strong hold on his shoulder.

It’s not going well.

“Shower,” Steve says, looking amused by Bucky’s struggles.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky attempts to use his best spoiled child voice - the one he knows Steve is very weak for - but it fails. “You make me go into that shower, I’m finishing off myself.” It’s as much of a threat as Bucky can think of at that moment, because his mind is consumed with getting off and nothing else.

“You do that, and I won’t touch you again,” Steve threatens in return, and it’s much more convincing because he actually got his dick wet in the car and is therefore in control of his brain.

Which is how Bucky, with wet spots ruining his expensive pants and a cock that is _begging_ for some attention, winds up in the shower. Alone. With his hands pressed to the tiled wall because if he’s not doing that, he’s gonna be jacking himself off, and he can’t face a world where Steve never puts those dinner plate hands on his body again. Bucky _needs_ it.

Steve, a master of torture, decides to do something. Bucky doesn’t know what. He doesn’t really care. What bothers him is the fact that Steve _isn’t_ joining him in the shower, and Bucky is about to cry.

The tables have truly turned. Bucky used to do this on a daily basis - drive men to tears with how much they want him, make them beg and plead and sob for release. Steve has done him in with a few moves, and Bucky thinks he should know better than to be fooled like this.

Finally the bathroom door opens, and Bucky grits his teeth. His cock throbs in time with his pulse. The contact of the water against his body is driving him up the wall, because it’s just enough to keep him on the edge, but not enough to put him over it.

Bucky hears Steve’s clothes hit the floor, then feels cool air against his back as the shower door opens and closes again. Steve’s hands appear on his hips, encompassing the points of his hip bones, and Bucky chokes a little on his own spit. “You cleaned up?” Steve asks in a deep rumble against his ear.

Bucky shakes his head, not trusting his voice.

“I’ll sort you out, don’t worry,” Steve promises, and Bucky is waiting for whatever hell Steve is about to rain down upon him - with soapy hands or a rough washcloth, he’s not sure.

What Bucky doesn’t expect is to feel Steve’s body shifting behind him - hands still firm on his hips - and for Steve’s teeth to suddenly be digging into the flesh of his ass. Bucky actually cries out at that, the shock of it causing him to dig his nails in as best he can against the tiles.

Slowly, tortuously slow, Steve’s hands move back from Bucky’s hips to cupping his ass - and then Steve is spreading his cheeks apart. “You left this in?” Steve asks, and Bucky doesn’t bother answering - he’s been trying to ignore how painfully aroused he is, thank you very much, and letting himself touch the plug would only lead to Bucky fucking himself on it. He was trying to be good.

Steve pulls it out slowly and Bucky whimpers, his knees like jelly beneath him. A thick thumb strokes over his hole, which is currently leaking Steve’s cum and still begging for more. Bucky feels himself choke out, “ _please_ ,” on a sob, warm tears mixing with water on his face. His legs are visibly trembling, and his cock hurts so much that he’s not sure he can take much more of this.

“Shh,” Steve soothes, pressing his thumb in past the loosened muscle, “you’re alright. I’ve got you.”

Steve’s thumb doesn’t go far before he pulls it back out, and Bucky whines at the loss before it’s replaced with Steve’s tongue and every braincell he had dies. Completely. His brain becomes a fried mess of nothing. It’s sludge. Bucky’s no longer a functioning human - instead he’s crying in earnest now, trying to force his hips back on Steve’s face, seeking that full feeling from earlier but not getting enough. Steve’s good with his tongue, better than Bucky thought he’d be, but that doesn’t mean it’s enough to help Bucky’s situation.

It goes on for hours. Bucky cries and begs and complains, pushing his ass back onto Steve’s face and being rewarded with warning bites, or a pinch on the flesh of his ass, or - at worst - the complete removal of Steve’s mouth from his body. It’s the sweetest kind of torture, a death befitting of a whore like Bucky.

It takes Bucky too long to realise Steve isn’t where he thought he was, lust-addled brain a jumble. Instead, Steve’s hands are stroking up his chest, toying with each of his nipples. The shower is off. Bucky wonders how long it’s been like that. “You ready?” Steve purrs against his ear, erection sliding between Bucky’s thighs, the tip of it rubbing the underside of Bucky’s balls and making him gasp.

“Yes,” Bucky says, as steadily as he can manage, which is not steady at all.

Steve, though he is officially the worst man Bucky has ever met, kindly helps him from the shower. He takes his time drying Bucky off, thoroughly rubbing him down everywhere except the place where Bucky needs him the most. Then Steve leads Bucky out into the main room of the penthouse, a place Bucky hadn’t cared to look at the first time.

If he wasn’t about to lose his fucking marbles, Bucky would appreciate it more. Laid out before them, with floor-to-ceiling windows, is New York’s lit up skyline. The world is daytime bright down at ground level, illuminated with car headlights and neon signs and street lamps and thousands of people living their lives. Bucky, momentarily forgetting that Steve has left him wanting for the past _eighty years_ , steps towards the glass - presses his hands to it, because they can afford to clean up after him - and stares up at the sky. There, beyond the light pollution, one can just make out a spattering of stars. Just.

Steve settles in behind him, chin on Bucky’s shoulder. “Like it?” He asks, with his usual sweet voice - not the one he’d just used to turn Bucky to jelly.

“It’s beautiful,” Bucky says and means it.

“Just like you,” Steve hums, a hand on Bucky’s chest - over his pounding heart - the other on his ass. “Hold on,” he whispers as he lines himself up, and Bucky’s whole body is suddenly one live wire, the want slamming into him like a tidal wave.

Steve’s tip presses at him slowly, much slower than in the car, teasing him. Steve’s hand prevents Bucky from impaling himself upon his length, despite how much Bucky wants it. No, Bucky’s made to wait as, slowly - centimetre by centimetre - Steve fills him. His hands are splayed on the glass, and Bucky stares at the light reflecting off his new ring while he gets filled by the man who gave it to him.

Yeah, he could get used to this. Maybe without the drawn out tease of it all, but this part he’s certainly down to repeat.

When Steve’s all the way in, buried in Bucky’s warm, welcoming body, chiseled chest against Bucky’s softer back, he starts to slowly thrust. “Hope someone sees this,” Steve says, around a grunt, Bucky’s hands scrabbling to dig into the smooth surface of the glass. “You, my little whore, begging for it - crying for it,” Steve says the words so sweet, noses against the soft space beneath Bucky’s ear, and the contrast is maddening.

“Please, Steve,” Bucky begs again, and Steve allows him to move a little, adjust his feet and hips so Steve’s hitting him just right.

Steve’s punched-out breaths send shudders down Bucky’s spine, his lips soft on his neck. “You’re so pretty,” Steve says, and Bucky can feel him losing his rhythm, letting instinct and desire take over.

“Steve,” Bucky manages around gasping breaths, his cock bouncing against his belly with each thrust, leaving a sticky string of pre-cum there, “please touch me.” His voice breaks - and Steve takes mercy on him.

The hand on Bucky’s chest slides down and wraps in one tight, blessedly tight, fist around him. It doesn’t even take a thrust - it’s just that touch, firm and direct, that sends Bucky careening off the edge.

He feels like he’s fallen through the glass window, hundreds of floors down to the ground. There’s nothing beneath him to keep him steady, and he sobs brokenly through his orgasm as he coats the glass in his release. Steve’s body is the only thing keeping Bucky upright, and he can’t help but go loose and pliant in Steve’s hold. He becomes a body, a hole, just something for Steve to press up against the glass and pump into. Steve comes with a growl, fingers so tight on Bucky’s hips - perhaps to hold him up - that they’ll hopefully leave bruises.

The pair of them lean heavily against the glass, a mess of sweat and tears and cum, catching their breath and reestablishing ground beneath them. Steve’s body is heavy on Bucky’s, and he’s never felt so right fitted there, even if he is aching and sticky.

Slowly, Steve parts from him, and Bucky’s legs really do give out - but Steve’s holding onto him. He lifts Bucky into his arms effortlessly - which is something Bucky will have to investigate further when he’s able to think and move - and carries him over to the bed. Steve is so gentle when he places Bucky down, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks.

“You should cry more often,” Steve says softly, tracing the pink tear tracks on Bucky’s face. “Looks good on you.”

Bucky’s eyelids flutter, sleepy and sated. “Whatever you want,” he slurs, body and mind already sinking into the soft mattress and beyond it into sleep. He turns to burrow into Steve’s warmth, inhaling the scent of him.

Bucky doesn’t notice he’s drifted off until he stirs awake when Steve disappears from beside him. He blinks sleepily at the empty space on the bed, and - by the time he musters the energy to open his eyes again - then Steve’s back, drawing a soft, warm washcloth over his body. Bucky lets himself be lifted again, tucked into bed with ease, Steve resettled at his side.

“I love you,” Steve murmurs into Bucky’s hair when he’s so close to sleep he can’t formulate a response.

—

Steve wakes too early for Bucky to be at all happy.

He tries to be quiet about it, but Bucky’s eyes crack open nonetheless, finding Steve standing awkwardly by their wardrobe.

“The fuck are you doing?” Bucky asks, checking the expensive clock on the wall - and then taking a moment to remember how Roman numerals work because it’s not like he was the brightest crayon in the box growing up. It’s barely six.

“Going to work out,” Steve says, pulling on briefs - Bucky’s cock weeps for the loss of such a gorgeous sight - and then workout clothes.

“Could work out here,” Bucky says. He aims for a suggestive purr, but it comes out sleepy and sullen.

Steve laughs, sitting on the bed to put his shoes on - but he stops to kiss Bucky’s forehead first, and Bucky preens under that attention. “I know. But I ordered you breakfast, and I thought you’d want to enjoy that without me bothering you.”

“What did you order?” Bucky asks, sleepily suspicious. It would take a lot to get him to _not_ want Steve around.

Steve bends over to tie his shoelaces. Bucky slides a hand beneath the waistband of his shorts, just because he can. “I didn’t know what you’d be in the mood for, so I asked them to bring up everything.”

Which is the only answer Bucky will accept as correct. “I love you,” he says with a sigh, savouring the warm skin of Steve’s ass beneath his fingers while imagining the sort of food they’d make in a hotel like this. He can have breakfast in bed, sliding his body against the expensive silk sheets while he indulges in the sort of food he’d never been able to afford before.

“Because I ordered breakfast?” Steve asks, turning and removing Bucky’s hand from his ass, instead holding it carefully in his own. The ring is still there - he’d forgotten to take it off the previous night. Bucky’s eyes flicker from it up to Steve’s face, earnest and sweet.

“No,” Bucky says, because it’s the truth - though not a truth he’d examined too closely before this. It’s something he knows so implicitly, that it simply feels like a natural progression to say it aloud. Of course, Bucky can’t have Steve’s head getting big enough to compete with his, so he adds, “but it certainly doesn’t hurt.”


End file.
